Law student resume example

What recruiters look for

• Education with grades and honors: law school, GPA or class rank if strong, journal, moot court and awards.
• Legal writing: memos, briefs and opinions you drafted. Judges in particular hire for writing.
• Legal experience: summer associate roles, judicial internships, clinics and pre-law-school legal jobs.
• Interest in the practice area: a note topic, clinic or work history that connects to the job.
• Clean, conservative formatting: a resume with a typo is often the end of a law student application.

Writing the summary

Many law student resumes skip the summary, and that is fine. If you include one, keep it to two sentences: your year, the practice area you want and the experience or language that sets you apart.

Bullet points that work

Strong lines for this role, beyond the ones in the example. Borrow the shape and put in your own numbers.

• Represented 5 clients in eviction hearings as a certified student attorney in a housing clinic, preserving 4 tenancies.
• Wrote a 30-page seminar paper on arbitration clauses in consumer contracts, selected for publication by a student journal.
• Cite-checked 4 articles (over 600 footnotes) as a staff editor, with no corrections from the senior editors.
• Drafted 3 sections of an amicus brief filed in a state supreme court as a research assistant to a law professor.
• Argued both sides of a constitutional law problem in a moot court competition, reaching the quarterfinals of 48 teams.
• Researched 50-state surveys on wage theft remedies for a legal aid organization’s policy report.
• Interviewed 20 clients at a free legal clinic and prepared intake memos for volunteer attorneys.
• Ranked in the top 15% of the 1L class after the first year.
• Translated 40 client documents from Spanish for a pro bono asylum team.

Skills to list

Certifications and licenses worth listing

• MPRE: list it once you have passed; many jurisdictions require it for admission.
• Bar exam status: the exam and the month you will sit it. Some jurisdictions begin offering the NextGen bar exam from July 2026, so name the exam your state uses.
• Student practice certification: if your clinic certified you to appear in court, say so.

Length and format

One page, always. Order: education (law school first), experience in reverse order, then a short section for bar status, languages and skills. Pre-law-school jobs get one or two lines unless they are legal or relevant.

Common mistakes

• Putting experience above education. For law students, the school, grades and journal come first.
• Inflating your role. “Assisted with” and “drafted” mean different things to a partner who has supervised summer associates.
• Typos and inconsistent formatting, which law firms treat as a writing sample failure.
• Long lists of interests and hobbies. One line, if any, and only if it could start a real conversation.
• Leaving out pre-law work experience. Two years in a legal job or another career is a real strength.