Attorney Resume Templates — Examples and Guide for 2023

For the sake of this writing guide, we’ll show you how to write a standard combination resume. However, feel free to adapt this format to fit your experience level. We’ll add suggestions on which resume you should use to summarize your legal expertise best.

Functional resume: We suggest this format for recent grads. A functional resume features two to four sections dedicated to your general and technical skills, making it perfect for a current lawyer with academic knowledge, mock trial experience, summer associate or internships, but little practical experience in a courtroom. You can learn more about this format, its strengths, and its related risks in our detailed guide.

Combination resume: The combination is an ideal choice for an attorney with three to five years of experience. You’ll have measurable experience that you can highlight under a work history section, but this format lets you lead with your skills first. You can learn more about this resume through our combination resume guide.

Chronological resume: You should use a chronological resume if you have over 10 years of experience. This format leads with your impressive work history and allows you to showcase ample legal expertise, many trial wins, and acquired legal specialties. You can learn more about this format in our writing guide.

Before you can start to write your resume, we strongly recommend that you compile a list of all of your soft, hard, and technical skills. You won’t feature all of these skills under a dedicated skills section. Still, you’ll be able to lend strength to your resume by showcasing additional skills throughout your summary statement, work history, and cover letter.

A combination resume only features six to eight skills under its dedicated skills section, so you’ll want to showcase your most impressive skills here. Ensure skills align with the requested requirements of the open job to which you’re applying.

For example, suppose a job ad specifies that you’ll provide legal counsel to the accounting department. In that case, you’ll want to showcase a legal specialty in finance law and not entertainment or employment law. You’ll need to tailor this information for each job posting to successfully pass applicant tracking systems (ATS). ATS scan applications for matching keywords and relevant experience to eliminate approximately 50% of applications before reaching human eyes. Pay close attention to the skills you feature so you aren’t whittled out.

Here are the specialized skills that most lawyers should hold. You can find a detailed list of additional requested skills here.

Skills Section Example:

A summary statement sits near the top of your resume, just under your name and contact information. This is your opening statement — a chance to present how you alone can fill an open role based on your professional and academic background to a jury of hiring managers and HR representatives.

You make the case by using the evidence before you; the list of skills you prepared and culled from an open job posting, making sure that the skills align with the desired skills of the company or law firm. You can lend strength to your summary statement by weaving in a narrative and demonstrating how a past accomplishment or trial win reflects your ability to fill the needs of an open job.

Our summary statement pro tips:

Summary statement example:

The work history is your opportunity to feature your learned or earned legal skills. This section is designed to explain how you successfully apply your technical knowledge to practice law for your previous employers. This section should feature information about the type of cases you argue, the trial prep work you do, the number of billable hours you log, case success rates, client happiness or loyalty, number of clients you can bring with you, or anything that pertains to the requirements listed under the open job ad.

Both a combination or chronological resume’s work history will follow this standard format:

However, if you’re a recent graduate writing a functional resume, your work history will be very brief and include only your job title, name of the company or firm, and general dates worked. For example, your work history section may look like this:

Work history example:

Your education section is the easiest and most straightforward section to fill. Regardless of what resume format you’re using, your education should always include the following information:

You can also include the following optional information, along with our recommendations of when to include this information:

Education section example: