On this page
- Resume guide for a law school resume
- How to write a law school resume
- Choosing the best resume format for a law school resume
- Include your contact information
- Make use of a summary
- Right vs wrong: the same law school resume summary, twice
- Outline your experience
- The law school application resume, in detail
- The 1L resume, on-campus interviewing and the summer sequence
- Journal, moot court, clinics and class rank
- Build a snapshot of your key skills
- List your education and honors
- Choose the right layout and design
- Law school and legal job market outlook
- What salary you can expect
- Key takeaways for a law school resume
- Related legal resume examples
- FAQ
In fact, a law school resume is not one document. Rather, it is two, written for two readers, and the common mistake is bringing one to the other's desk.
The first is the application resume. The first goes into an admissions file beside an LSAT or GRE score, a Credential Assembly Service transcript summary, letters of recommendation and a personal statement. The numbers there already say what you can do, so the resume says what you have done: activities, leadership, paid work, service, and how long you stayed.
By contrast, you write the second once you are inside. For example, a 1L with no legal experience, interviewing for a first summer, produces one page for a reader sorting a stack against grades, journal membership and class rank. This guide covers both.
Resume guide for a law school resume
To start, this guide and the corresponding law school resume example will cover:
- First, how the admissions resume differs from a job resume, and why
- Next, how to write a 1L resume with no legal experience yet
- Then, on-campus interviewing and the 1L and 2L summer sequence
- Also, journal, moot court, clinics and class rank, and how each is written down
- Finally, three adaptable summaries, and what the legal market pays
How to write a law school resume
Five sections in both versions: contact header, education, experience, activities and leadership, and skills. However, what changes is the weight each carries.
| Section | On the admissions resume | On the 1L and 2L resume |
|---|---|---|
| Education | Undergraduate degree, grade point average, honors | Law school first, with rank, journal and awards; undergraduate second |
| Experience | Every substantial job, paid or unpaid, with hours and duration | Anything, legal or not, rewritten as research, writing and analysis |
| Activities | The center of the document | Law school activities plus one or two that still signal something |
The admissions resume is not selling skills, and that is the whole difference
A job resume argues that you can do a specific job. An admissions resume does not have to, because the file already holds the instruments built for that: LSAC states that a school must receive your application, your Credential Assembly Service report or LSAT Law School Report, letters of recommendation, a personal statement and the fee before it can decide, and that your LSAT score "is an integral part of your law school application for most law schools" (LSAC, JD application requirements, accessed September 2026).
So the resume carries what none of those hold: what you did with your four years, how many hours a week, and what you kept doing when nobody was grading it. "Barista, 28 hours a week across three academic years while carrying a full course load" says what a transcript cannot.
Run the finished file through the free ATS resume checker before you send it. Recruiting portals parse before a person reads.
Choosing the best resume format for a law school resume
Reverse chronological, single column, plain type. As for layout, no sidebars, no photograph, no color blocks, no skills bars. Firms read hundreds of student resumes in a compressed window and have converged on one layout so they can compare them.
In particular, the one-page rule belongs to the employer side and employers enforce it. A 3L with a journal editorship, a clinic, a moot court title and two summers still submits one page. Past the line, cut undergraduate activities, then coursework.
Include your contact information
Theo Marchetti-Ade
New Haven, CT(203) 555-0148, theo.marchetti-ade@example.comlinkedin.com/in/exampleTheo Marchetti-Ade
118 Willow Street, Apt 2B, New Haven, CT 06511(203) 555-0148, futureattorney2029@example.comDate of birth, photograph, LSAT score in the headerAs a rule, use the name on your transcript and your bar application. A mismatch between the resume, the academic record and your character and fitness disclosures will draw questions later.
Make use of a summary
A summary is optional on a law student resume and most students leave it off, because education and activities carry the page. Only include one where you are changing direction, have years of work behind you, or an application form asks for a profile.
Law school applicant adaptable resume summary example
1L adaptable resume summary example
Third-year law student adaptable resume summary example
Right vs wrong: the same law school resume summary, twice
In other words, the right column is what an associate will ask you about for twenty minutes in a callback interview. The left column is not.
Outline your experience
Organization, role, city, dates, then two to four bullets. For each bullet, past tense, verb at the front, a number wherever one honestly exists.
- Instead of
Worked at a legal aid organization
UseManaged a housing intake list of about 340 households a year and prepared the documentation used in eviction defense hearings
- Instead of
Legal research for a professor
UseRead and summarized 46 state appellate decisions on municipal receivership and built the citation table used in the published article
- Instead of
Judicial internship
UseDrafted 11 bench memoranda on pretrial motions for a state superior court judge, 3 adopted substantially in the rulings
- Instead of
Waited tables during college
UseWorked 28 hours a week through three academic years while carrying a full course load, funding about half of term costs
Adaptable resume employment history example
Summer Associate, Harrow & Lindqvist LLP, Hartford, CT, May 2026 to July 2026
Drafted two sections of a summary judgment motion in a commercial dispute, both filed with light revision by the supervising partner.
Researched a choice-of-law question across three jurisdictions and produced the memorandum that changed the team's forum recommendation.
Reviewed and coded roughly 2,400 documents for privilege to the case team's protocol.
The law school application resume, in detail
This is the version most people get wrong, because they write it as though a hiring manager will read it. Three rules separate a good one.
Also give duration and hours, not just titles. After all, three years in one organization reads differently from three organizations in three years, and the resume is where that becomes visible.
Similarly, include the work that paid your bills. For instance, retail, food service, warehouse, caregiving and military service belong on the page, with hours per week.
In addition, separate leadership from membership. "Member, Debate Society" and "Treasurer, Debate Society, responsible for a 14,000 dollar budget across 31 members" are different claims, and only one is worth a line.
After that, follow each school's instructions on length and headings exactly. Indeed, this is the first document in a profession that runs on doing that.
The 1L resume, on-campus interviewing and the summer sequence
On the employer side, schools keep the start of 1L year closed to recruiting by design. Specifically, NALP's guidance sets a date before which schools do not facilitate 1L recruiting, leaving first-semester students to their grades. As a result, most 1L hiring happens from December onward through direct application, and the first summer is typically government, judicial, public interest or a research assistantship.
Meanwhile, the 2L summer is the one that converts, and employers fill it through on-campus interviewing. Even so, NALP reported that by 2023 roughly 45 percent of summer associate offers were extended in July or earlier, and that 56 percent of students had approached employers directly, outside their school's OCI program (NALP Bulletin+, January 2025). So you write the resume that decides a 2L summer in the spring of 1L year, on two semesters of grades and no legal employment history.
A 1L resume is built out of what you actually have:
- To begin with, your legal writing course, named, with its assignments as work: a trial brief, an appellate brief, an oral argument
- Next, your pre-law-school jobs, rewritten as research, drafting, client contact and volume
- Then research assistant work, with the subject and the output
- Plus pro bono hours, with the number and the project
- Lastly, languages and any industry expertise you brought with you
It should not contain first-semester courses everyone else also took; Contracts, Torts and Civil Procedure are not differentiating.
The employment numbers are strong, and they are concentrated
For the Class of 2024, 93.4 percent of graduates whose employment status was known were employed about ten months after graduation, and 84.3 percent held jobs requiring bar admission. The overall median salary was 95,000 dollars against a law firm median of 160,000 dollars (NALP, Employment Report and Salary Survey findings for the Class of 2024, published September 2025).
Read the distribution, not the headline. Of all private practice jobs taken by that class, 34.2 percent were at firms of more than 500 lawyers and 47.8 percent at firms of 101 or more, an all-time high (NALP, Class of 2024 selected findings). A small number of very large employers hire in one compressed window on a strict one-page document.
Journal, moot court, clinics and class rank
Beyond grades, these are the credential lines law students are ranked on, and each has a convention.
| Credential | How it is written | What it signals |
|---|---|---|
| Law review or journal | Journal name, position, selection method, volume and year | Writing, editing, selection by grades or write-on |
| Moot court or mock trial | Competition name, round reached, your role, field size | Oral advocacy and brief writing under pressure |
| Clinic | Clinic name, semester, matters handled, forum, outcomes | Real client work under supervision |
| Class rank | Top 5, 10, 15 or 25 percent, with the class and term | The screen at most large firms |
For a journal, say how you got on: readers treat grade-on, write-on and a combined process differently. Likewise, give the round and field size in a competition line, since "quarter-finalist, 64-team regional competition" is a fact and "moot court participant" is not. Name the forum for clinic work, because eight administrative hearings is a different claim from eight client interviews. Above all, state rank only in the form your school publishes it.
Build a snapshot of your key skills
For skills, six to ten entries on one or two lines: research platforms, technical tools, languages, and anything from a previous career.
Adaptable resume skills example
Research: Westlaw, Lexis+, Bloomberg Law, PACER and state e-filing portals
Practice tools: Relativity document review, Word styles and tables of authorities, Excel
Languages: English (native), Portuguese (conversational), Spanish (intermediate)
Other: Housing and benefits administrative practice, Bluebook citation editing
List your education and honors
Law school first, then undergraduate: institution, degree, field, expected date, then rank, journal, honors and awards.
Adaptable resume education and honors example
University of Connecticut School of Law, Hartford, CT. Juris Doctor expected May 2027. Class rank: top 15 percent. Articles Editor, Connecticut Law Review, Volume 59, selected by write-on competition. CALI Excellence for the Future Award, Legal Research and Writing.
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT. Bachelor of Arts, Political Science and Economics, May 2022. Grade point average 3.79 of 4.00. Dean's List, six semesters.
Choose the right layout and design
One page, single column, a common serif or sans-serif face at 10 to 12 point, margins of at least three quarters of an inch, dates aligned consistently, no photograph, no graphics. Finally, export as PDF, named with your surname and the post.
Do
- Keep two versions, one for admissions and one for employers.
- Put duration and hours per week on the admissions version.
- Say how you were selected for a journal.
- Give the round reached and the field size for a competition.
- Name the forum and the number of matters for clinic work.
- Keep the employer version to one page.
Don’t
- Do not list first-year courses every 1L takes.
- Do not claim a rank your registrar will not confirm.
- Do not call a language fluent if you cannot interview in it.
- Do not put an LSAT score on an employer resume.
- Do not use a two-column template with icons.
Law school and legal job market outlook
Overall, the occupation on the far side of the degree is growing, and the pipeline into it faster.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Lawyer jobs, 2025 | 863,700 |
| Projected change, 2025-35 | +5%, or 40,600 jobs |
| Projected annual openings | ~28,700 |
| Typical entry-level education | Doctoral or professional degree |
| Median annual wage, May 2025 | $159,670 |
| Law school applicants, 2026 cycle | 82,493 |
Where lawyers work:
| Setting | Share of employment, 2025 | Median annual wage, May 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Legal services | ||
| Local government | ||
| State government | ||
| Federal government |
What salary you can expect
There is no single wage attached to this page, because law school is a qualification rather than an occupation. In short, what follows is what it leads into.
| Destination occupation | Median annual wage, May 2025 | Jobs, 2025 | Projected change, 2025-35 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lawyers | 863,700 | +5% | |
| Judges, magistrate judges and magistrates | 42,700 with hearing officers | +2% | |
| Administrative law judges and hearing officers | 42,700 with judges | +2% | |
| Paralegals and legal assistants | 404,900 | 0% |
The spread inside the lawyer figure is wider than the median suggests: the lowest 10 percent earned less than $78,360 and the highest 10 percent more than $351,600 (BLS, May 2025). In part, NALP's entry-level data explains that shape, with a Class of 2024 median of 95,000 dollars overall against 160,000 dollars in law firms (NALP, September 2025). That is why the resume matters: it moves which side of that distribution firms recruit you into.
Key takeaways for a law school resume
- Write two documents, therefore, an admissions resume and an employer resume, and never send one for the other.
- On the admissions version, put duration and hours per week on every entry, including paid work.
- On both versions, separate leadership from membership, with the budget or the headcount.
- On the employer version, by comparison, one page is a rule, not a target.
- Instead of padding, build the 1L resume from legal writing assignments, research work, pro bono hours and pre-law jobs.
- Also say how the journal selected you, and give the round and field size for a competition.
- Start the employer version in the spring of 1L year; the window opens earlier than it feels.
Related legal resume examples
- Lawyer resume
- Attorney resume
- Paralegal resume
- Legal assistant resume
- Claims adjuster resume
- Immigration lawyer resume
- Compliance officer resume
- Criminology resume
- Notary resume
- Legal resume
- Research assistant resume
- Academic resume
Law school resume questions, answered
Does a law school application need a resume?
LSAC lists the application, the CAS report or LSAT Law School Report, letters of recommendation, a personal statement and the fee as what a school must receive before deciding (LSAC, JD application requirements, accessed September 2026). Most schools also ask for a resume under their own requirements, so follow their instructions.
How long should a law school resume be?
One page for the employer version, without exception, including as a 3L with a journal editorship and two summers. One page for most admissions resumes too. Two pages on the admissions side only with years of full-time work, military service or a previous career to account for.
What goes on a 1L resume with no legal experience?
Your legal writing course with its assignments described as work, any research assistantship and its subject, pro bono hours with the number and the project, and pre-law-school jobs rewritten around research, drafting, client contact and volume.
Should I put my class rank and GPA on the resume?
Put your law school grade point average and rank on the employer version while they are competitive, in the form your registrar publishes them, since large firms screen on them. Some schools rank only by band and some not at all, so say what yours says.
When do law students get hired for their summers?
The first is usually found from December of 1L year onward through direct applications, commonly in government, judicial, public interest or research work. The second is filled through on-campus interviewing, which has moved earlier: by 2023 about 45 percent of summer associate offers were made in July or earlier (NALP Bulletin+, January 2025).