A strong law school resume highlights your academic achievements, relevant experiences, and transferable skills to demonstrate your readiness for legal studies. Unlike a traditional job resume, it’s tailored to emphasize your fit for an academic program. Your law schools resume also gives you an opportunity to highlight your accomplishments not seen on your transcript (which is especially critical if you’re trying to get into law school with a low GPA). With a polished law school resume, you can present yourself as a compelling candidate for admission. In this blog, we’ll spill our best tips on how to craft your own!
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Law School Resume Example #1
Law School Resume Example #2
Law School Resume Example #3
What Is A Law School Resume?
A law school resume is a required document in applications to most law schools in Canada and the United States. Applicants often focus on perfecting law school personal statements, figuring out how to study for the LSAT, and reviewing potential law school interview questions, and while these are essential components of the law school application, a strong resume can be just as important. Law schools like to get a sense of who you are as a person and what you've done outside of the classroom, so a good resume can significantly impact your ability to gain admission.
Furthermore, most admission committees use your resume as an initial screening tool. They will start by reviewing your resume before reading your admissions essays or any other application components to find out about your general background, achievements, and overall profile. This helps them decide if your application is worth considering. If you are called for an interview, the admissions board will usually ask questions related to your resume, so it's a good idea to learn how to prepare for your law school interview with your resume in mind.
When done correctly, your law school resume should showcase your accomplishments, experience, and skills in a way that will stand out to the admissions board.
Law School Resume vs Regular Job-Seeking Resume
A job-seeking resume highlights technical skills and job-specific qualifications, while a law school resume emphasizes readiness for law school and fit for the institution. Here are a few other points on how they differ:
Target Audience: Law school resumes are tailored for admissions committees, focusing on academic achievements, communication skills, and qualities valued by the school.
Purpose: Job resumes showcase aptitude for specific roles (e.g., technical skills for graphic design); law school resumes present evidence of preparation for legal studies.
Content Focus: Job resumes often include objectives, technical skills, and job-specific experiences. Law school resumes emphasize academic background, awards, and transferable skills relevant to legal studies.
Would you first like to see a summary of some key tips we discuss later in this article? Check this out:
Law School Resume Format & Layout
Unless otherwise specified, these are our recommendations for the format of your law school resume:
Length
Ideally, your law school resume should be a one-page document, up to 2 pages max if you have a few years of working experience under your belt (5 years minimum).
Margins and Spacing
Your document's margins should be at least one inch, and your line spacing should be either 1.0 or 1.15. Avoid using smaller margins or smaller line spacing so that you can fit more information on one page, as that just makes your resume look crammed. The presentation of your resume is just as important as the content, so focus on clarity and readability. A neat and clear two-page resume is better than an unprofessional-looking one that fits on one page.
Font
The optimal font size is generally between 10 and 12 points. You should pick a clean, easy-to-read font like Calibri, Times New Roman, Arial, or Garamond and stick to it throughout the document.
Design
Always avoid bright and flashy colors. Stick to black and white—but if you need a splash of color, consider grey, dark blue, or green—however color should be minimal, if incorporated at all.
Writing Style
Your law school resume needs to communicate a substantive amount of information in a very precise manner. To make it easy to read and to provide only the most pertinent information, we recommend sticking to bullet point lists that convey the key achievements for each experience and project you worked on. Each bullet point should have a maximum of three lines to avoid cluttering up the page.
Looking for more tips on how to make your law school application stand out?:
Law School Resume Sections & Content
There is no golden resume template to get you into law school. The key to success is making sure that your resume is structured in a way that is easy to follow and read. That means keeping everything neat and separated into clearly labeled sections. Your resume should include the following sections:
1. Contact Information
This is, without a doubt, the easiest section on your resume; include your name, professional degree or qualification (for example, MBA, MD or BA), mailing and email address, and your phone number.
TIP: While including a LinkedIn profile is optional, it does give admissions officers another opportunity to learn more about you, so including it (after your phone number) on your resume may be to your benefit.
2. Education
Your education section should be listed in reverse chronological order, including each degree with details like the institution, graduation year, major/minor, GPA (if competitive), and key achievements. If you have significant work experience, keep education entries brief, focusing on essentials like the degree, institution, and key highlights relevant to law school.
3. Work Experience
Often, this is where applicants err by trying to cram in too much information. Depending on your level of experience, this section can take up to 3/4 of your resume, but you need to make sure that it only includes relevant information. You should stick to the following:
Write your summaries in bullet points, with each point having one to three lines, and use action verbs such as "improved", "managed" or "modified". Be specific and quantify your achievements whenever possible but remember that you can provide more information about the skills you gained and what you learned in your personal statement.
You can look at law school personal statement examples to get a better idea of how to do that.
As with the education section, you should write it in reverse chronological order and divide it into different subsections. For example, you can include a subcategory for research experience or volunteer experience, depending on your background.
4. Additional Achievements and Information
Use this section to highlight extracurricular achievements, certifications, awards, honors, leadership roles in associations/clubs, or relevant interests. Focus on high-stakes accomplishments that showcase qualities valued by law schools, such as leadership or initiative (e.g., founding and leading a chess club to a major tournament). Avoid including items that don’t strengthen your application.
To make your resume more enticing, you can separate the information into different subcategories, as done in the example below:
Additional Tips For A Strong Law School Resume
Be Consistent With the Rest of Your Application
Your resume is just one component of your law school application. It is supposed to give the admissions board an overview of your academic and professional background. The easiest way to achieve this is to be honest, avoid exaggerations and thoroughly proofread all of your documents.
For example, suppose you’ve chosen to write a law school diversity statement in which you mention that you’ve spent a significant amount of time volunteering for Big Brothers Big Sisters to help children who come from the same socioeconomic background as you, but then your resume shows that you were only a volunteer for one month. In that case, your word choice may cause the admissions board to be confused or, even worse, suspicious. It is important to pay attention to the details and stick to telling the facts in a flattering way rather than trying to embellish your experience.
Focus on Actions and Results
Focus on action-oriented statements and quantifiable results to showcase your skills and impact. Use strong action verbs (e.g., "created," "led," "performed") and measurable outcomes to highlight achievements. For instance, instead of "responsible for converting paper filing system," write "overhauled office paper filing system, digitizing records to improve efficiency." This approach demonstrates qualities relevant to law school, such as initiative and problem-solving.
Skip the Technical Jargon
Avoid using technical jargon or acronyms specific to your industry on a law school resume, as admissions committees focus on content and communication skills. Use clear, concise language to ensure your achievements are easily understood and demonstrate effective communication.
Prioritize Adult Education and Work Experience
Your law school resume should only mention significant experiences and prestigious accomplishments from after high school and forward.
Law schools are more interested in what you've done and who you are as an adult. For example, a 3.7 GPA from one of the best undergraduate business schools will be more impressive than a 4.0 in high school.
Proofread Thoroughly
After you've finished the final draft of your law school resume, you should step away from it and come back to check it with fresh eyes. Make sure that there are no grammatical errors or typos, that your format is consistent throughout, and that it follows the school guidelines (if any). You can also invest in a law school admissions consulting service to maximize your chances of having a solid resume and getting into law school.
Here's what one of our former law school applicants had to say:
“I had an application strategy meeting with Joseph Narusis to go over what to write for my personal statement and other supplemental documents for law school. Joe was supportive and attentive and have a lot of good advice on what to specifically write about, such which unique skills to focus the essay on and to look out for the school's mission statement for more guidance on what topics to write about. He was very patient answering additional questions I had about the BeMo program as well. Overall, I felt a lot more confident on what to write!” – BeMo Student
FAQs
1. What is a law school resume?
A law school resume is a short document that provides a snapshot of the applicant's academic and professional background. It is an integral part of most law school applications.
2. Can I use my regular work resume for my law school application?
We do not recommend that you do this, because your law school resume should be geared toward an academic program. Your work resume is supposed to grab an employer's attention, and they're looking for specific technical skills that show them that you can perform in a particular line of work.
3. Are law school resumes an essential part of law school applications?
In short, yes! Law school resumes can be used as a screening document for some admissions committees. Furthermore, they give you a chance to showcase your background in a way you may not be able to in the other documents that comprise your application.
4. How long does my law school resume need to be?
Ideally, one page long, but this will depend on your experience level. You should try not to have more than two pages.
5. What should my law school resume include?
Your resume should give the admissions board of your chosen school an overview of your academic and professional background. Therefore, it should consist of your contact information, education, work experience, and any relevant additional information (Such as awards and honors, special projects, certifications, Skills, Interests/Activities)
6. Should I include a link to my LinkedIn on my law school resume?
It's completely optional. That said, you should keep in mind that the aim is for the admissions board to get to know you, so if your LinkedIn has additional information that can strengthen your candidacy, then you should include it.
7. How can I create a law school resume with no work experience?
You should list any volunteering, internships, and campus leadership roles. Furthermore, you can expand your education section by including relevant coursework or projects.
8. Should I include my High School education on my law school resume?
You can include some information about your high school experience but keep this short because law schools are far more interested in the adult version of you. You should only include your high school's name, your graduation year, and significant achievements, such as valedictorian.
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