Key Components of a Law Clerk Resume
A law clerk resume should contain the following elements:
Your name.
Your phone number and email address (including URL to your LinkedIn profile if you have one).
Your professional summary, no longer than three lines. This is the part of your law clerk resume that tells your story, helps you stand out from other applicants and gives the reader a reason to keep reading. It’s the quick snapshot of you that hints at how you will bring value to the position you are applying for.
Your work experience, starting with the most current or relevant. Name of firm and date range of employment. Include your title. A word of caution – keep it succinct and be sure to proofread your information for inconsistencies, e.g . , language in one job in first person and the other written in the third person.
Your education, starting with the most recent. Include any honors, such as cum laude or honors program.
Your technical skills. What software packages do you know? If applicable, include certifications, particularly for any that may lend you an advantage, such as LexisNexis or Westlaw certification.
Your professional associations. Which organizations you belong to (ABA, state bar, etc.) and any offices held.
Your professional bar admissions. Jurisdiction and date of admission.
Your publications and presentations.
Items that are not typically included on a law clerk resume:
Do not include personal hobbies or interests. These do not help your law clerk resume in any way.
Highlighting Relevant Legal Experience
When it comes to legal resumes, demonstrating relevant experience is crucial. Law students and recent graduates often wonder how they should succinctly convey their previous roles and internships in legal settings. It’s important to remember that employers are looking for specific indicators of your law-related expertise: the types of cases you’ve worked on, the research projects you’ve handled, or the legal documents you’ve drafted.
When crafting the content of this section, you should use action verbs in the past tense and do your best to quantify the accomplishment. Consider these examples:
Intern, State Attorney’s Office, May-July 2014
• Conducted legal research and drafted motions for three felony criminal cases.
• Assisted in four cases involving DCF reporting requirements.
Research Assistant, Legal Aid Society, January-April 2014
• Researched case law and statutes related to foreclosure lawsuits for civil litigation attorneys.
• Assisted in discovery strategies, including the drafting of interrogatories and notices to produce.
You may also include a brief description of the internship and what it brought to your resume. You should also indicate if it was another law school or university’s clinic or research position. Students who worked in other states should include the name of the state. These are wonderful experiences to include and show employers that you took advantage of all the opportunities offered at law school.
Emphasizing Education and Licensure
In addition to your work experience, and possibly your publications, you will want to include your law school on your resume. Listing the full name of the institution(s) is important, including LLB or JD, if applicable. If you are a recent graduate, like a 2nd or 3rd year law student, be sure to list your Dean’s List honors and any other relevant awards and honors there.
You do not need to include the name of your undergraduate institution, unless you have earned honors there, such as Latin honors, or you have joined the bar after that (LLA, QL, LLB, etc). If you were a double major or have a degree in a related field to your desired position, then you should include this information.
If you have passed the bar exam, be sure to include the date and the jurisdiction of admission. If you are currently practicing, you should also include the license number. If you have not yet taken the exam, include the expected date. Be advised that employers will be looking at your scores, and any LSAT or state bar exam scores that you voluntarily divulge. Only include them if they will demonstrate your qualifications for the position and their numerical values.
Skills to Include on Your Law Clerk Resume
The skills that you decide to highlight in your resume are key to presenting yourself as a competitive candidate. Since law clerks largely assist attorneys with behind-the-scenes work like legal research and drafting, the skills that are emphasized on law clerk resumes should naturally reflect these duties. These skills include:
Legal Research and Writing
Legal research and writing are arguably the most important skills for law clerks to possess. Assistance with these tasks can take on many forms, including:
All of these tasks can provide valuable experience for law students and should be emphasized on a law clerk resume.
Attention to Detail
Being detail-oriented is critical for law clerks, as attorneys rely on them to complete assignments accurately and punctually. As the following examples illustrate, you can convey your attention to detail by referring to particular tools that you have used to complete certain tasks:
Collaboration
Another primary assignment likely to fall to law clerks will be to collaborate with other clerks or professionals. This may be in reference to editing joint assignments or working on research tasks together. Potential law clerks should try to emphasize an ability to work well with others in their resumes:
Time Management and Organization
Finally, because law clerks usually have to juggle several assignments, time management skills are something that are always looked at favorably by courts and firms alike. You should try to refer to law firm internships or similar experiences where you were able to successfully manage your time and complete numerous assignments on deadline, to give potential employers a clear example of your organizational skills.
Customizing Your Resume for Law Clerk Opportunities
Employers want to see that you have taken the time to learn about their job search process and know exactly what they are looking for in a candidate. The best way to show them that you are, in fact, truly interested is to customize your law clerk resume for each opportunity.
This is particularly important if you are applying to multiple law clerk positions. Take some time to tailor your resume to fit each job description. Most employers utilize applicant tracking systems (ATS) that scan a resume and look for keywords. You can increase your chances of being seen by incorporating these keywords into your resume that are listed in the job description.
However, be careful not to overstuff your resume with keywords or even create a philosophical key word approach, which is placing keywords blindly throughout your resume with the hope that an employer will see some of them. Proper use of key words will not only ensure you pass the initial review process during an ATS scan , but will give a hiring manager a good idea of your interest in the position. Be sure you have matching terminology or skill sets in your resume that are referenced by the employer.
Refer back to multiple employer job descriptions to ensure you have the right details about a specific job.
Every company has its own unique set of qualifications or specialty skills they are looking for. Depending on your experience, your education or distinct abilities, you may have some aspects to your resume which are stronger than others. Make sure to emphasize those skills on the resume you submit to a company that would align with those qualifications.
For example, if you are applying to a law firm and are fluent in a second language, list that language first when describing your strong skill set, as bilingual employees are in high demand.
Law Clerk Resume Formatting and Design
Your law clerk resume is your chance to make a positive first impression. That’s why your resume design and layout are crucial to the job application process. Here are some tips on layout and design best practices for law clerk resumes: Choose the Appropriate Font Family and Size: The font family you choose for your law clerk resume can say a lot about you as a candidate. Your font family should reflect the tone of your resume. Fonts like Times New Roman, Arial and Calibri convey a sense of professionalism and clarity. Some fonts, like Comic Sans, may be too casual for a formal job application. Pay attention to font size also. Size 12 is the best font size for the majority of resumes. Using different font sizes can help you guide the reader’s eye toward certain pieces of information, such as publication titles and points of emphasis. Use Spacing to Your Advantage: Whitespace—the empty spaces on your resume where no text or graphics appears—may be your most powerful layout feature. Blank space breaks up long paragraphs, guiding your reader along as he or she scans your resume. Empty space improves the readability of your law clerk resume and makes it easier to understand. Left and right page margins should range between one-half inch and one inch, with one-inch margins being the industry standard. Avoid large empty spaces, but do use white space where necessary throughout your law clerk resume. Don’t Go Overboard with Headings: It’s important to include headings in your law clerk resume, as headings help organize your content and make it easy to scan. Include headings for sections like your education, experience, publications and skills. However, don’t go overboard with headings, or your law clerk resume may begin to look more like an outline than a complete document. Use headings to break your content into distinguishable areas for easier reading, rather than to simply separate subsections within your law clerk resume. Don’t Forget about UX and UI: Your law clerk resume is not a website, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think about user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) with respect to your law clerk resume. UI refers to the information architecture of your resume — the effective and efficient organization of information in an easy-to-understand layout. Good UI ensures that your law clerk resume is logical. UX is the overall experience your resume provides to the reader. When you take UX and UI into consideration, you make it easier for the hiring manager to scan your resume quickly and identify priorities and points of emphasis.
Law Clerk Resume Mistakes to Avoid
Despite the fact that the least effort put into a law resume can seem to be well above the effort required to put together a resume for an entry-level job in practically any industry, many applicants fail to live up to their potential in putting together resumes. Some common mistakes follow:
Typos
Typos and other careless errors are still rampant in the resumes of law clerks. You would think, given what the typical law clerk does – (which is to check and correct the work of others), that law firms would learn to recognize the value of a clean, error-free law clerk resume, and reject those that aren’t, but this is clearly not the case. We still routinely see law clerks with resumes that are poorly worded, have typos or other careless mistakes. A simple spell-check will not reveal all the errors (for example, your spell-check will not reveal that you have used "there" when it should have been "their," which is something most partners will notice), so make sure you actually read your resume. Also, have another partner read it too, as they are likely to be much more discerning than you about small details and mistakes .
Irrelevant Information
Many law clerks include information on their resumes that their partner obviously included on their resume – such as an NALP number or more obscure information such as information you may feel is relevant such as your participation in high school sports. Another example of information that should not be included on a law clerk resume is non-legal internships (such as working away from law school in a psychology lab – this information is unnecessary and irrelevant).
Generic Language
Given that law clerks really don’t write law clerk resumes as well as they should, some law firms might actually do a double-take if they see one that is well written – that is. If your law clerk resume is well-written and is specific to law clerking, it will stand out from the crowd of law clerk resumes currently circulating. Many law clerk resumes fall into the trap of being poorly and generically written. For example, "I would be an asset to your firm" is really lame and generic. You need to write your law clerk resume in a clear and well-written manner that addresses each position that you have had and specifically discusses why you are a good candidate for that position and why your experiences at that position will benefit you when you are hired as a law clerk.