Law Resume Examples

As with any resume, you’ll need the five main sections: contact information, professional summary or objective statement, skills, work history and education.

The main areas to sell yourself in your law resume should be found in your skills and work experience sections. Those are the spaces where you have to show employers that you’re the right candidate for the job.

It’s also useful to include some numbers on your resume to give a scope of your work to hiring managers.

For example, a paralegal could include statistics like this:

• Perform all research and notetaking for a four-person legal team
• Organized and prepared all documents for 95 different clients
• Implemented new filing program and file-opening checklist resulting in 20% decrease in time needed to catalog new cases
• Coordinated with administrative team to standardize billing practices resulting in 11% increase in profitability

Obviously, it’s important to use numbers that are flattering, but ethics is the cornerstone of law. So, never make up or embellish your numbers — lying on your resume will only backfire.

The law can have a great impact on people’s lives, so it makes sense that higher education is required for most roles in law.

Include all education starting with your highest degree attained by listing the name of the institution, its city/state, the degree you obtained (if any) and your major(s) if applicable.

It should look something like this:

Acacia University Greenwell, ME

J.D., Maritime Law

Campbell College Oswego, NY

B.A., Philosophy

If you have attended college, it’s unnecessary to list education prior to that such as high school.

Also, it used to be customary to list the year that you earned your degree, but including a date with your degree can indicate your approximate age, which can lead to potential hiring bias issues.

Many qualified law professionals also may need to list certain certifications from the American Bar Association (ABA), including for instance, passing the bar or earning your paralegal certification.

Create a special section to list these achievements called “Licenses and Certifications.”

However, make sure that you are very clear about your status with the bar — whether you’ve been officially admitted and if so, to which state(s).

Try to keep all the work experience you include in a resume focused on law.

The more your work history aligns with this new role, the more hiring managers are apt to give you serious consideration.

You can include work from other industries outside of law, however, try to keep that experience relevant to the industry.

If you’re fresh out of school or changed from a new industry, try to tailor the experience you include on your resume to feature duties that might be in line with the job that you’re applying for.

Try to include any experience you might have with research, data entry, organization, writing, public speaking, presentations, knowledge of local codes or ordinances, teamwork or administration.

A summary statement is a brief two-to-three sentence synopsis of your greatest work achievements and accomplishments that sits at the top of your resume just under your contact info.

The goal is to turn your career in law into a sales pitch for your strongest qualities that will elicit excitement from hiring managers and give more attention to your resume.

In order to write a solid one, you want to mention notable achievements and your top skills that separate you from other candidates.

For example, a solid summary statement might look something like this:

“Dedicated environmental lawyer with 8+ years’ experience thrives on holding corporations responsible for their negative actions. My prior efforts against Robeson LLC led to a $37 million claim in habitat damages that funded state restoration efforts. My knowledge of environmental law combined with my skills in litigation, public speaking and emotional appeal have been the cornerstone of my success.”

Yes. Law is a traditional field and it’s the professional expectation in law that you always include a cover letter when you submit your resume.

You also don’t want to miss this opportunity to really sell your skills and what you bring to the table.

More than most professions, law also lends itself to telling a story about your experience that will help engage employers. Discussing a big case that you worked on, a kink in your firm’s operations that you worked out or the narrative of your career growth could help you resonate with employers greatly.

To get started writing your own impactful letter, check out JobHero’s law cover letter examples. There’s a great selection of well-written letters for many jobs in the law field.

If you want a bit more instruction, JobHero also has a step-by-step guide on how to write a cover letter that will break it down for you and make creating a great letter easy.