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Free Downloadable Law Resume Templates and Expert Writing Tips
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A society needs to have rules and laws, as well as people that will set order and justice. This is why we need lawyers, attorneys, legal secretaries and assistants. If you are part of the law sector, you need a striking resume to project your exceptional legal expertise, administrative abilities and in-depth understanding of the law and legal system. With our professional guidance, you can land your desired role utilizing our resume examples, templates and role-specific skills.
Best Free Downloadable Resume Templates for Law Jobs
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Stately
This simple resume template stresses your career exposure and education over your skill set. This helps your potential employer understand your career progression and trajectory. You can easily format this template and substitute the sample content with your details. -
Firm
This compact single-page resume template can efficiently describe your career history, education and skills all in one page. This design is ideal for individuals with a consistent law career without career breaks. You can easily customize this design to display your professional journey. -
One-two-three
This edgy and color-efficient resume template can give you a modern structure to create your professional picture. The color-coded segregated sections emphasize your work history, education and skills horizontally. -
Seasoned
This simple resume template can come to your aid if you wish to upstage your skills over the career summary and equally stress their importance in your resume. This combination resume template is ideal for law professionals with midlevel career experience. -
Exemplar
Law professionals can utilize this template to put forward their command on the field by detailing their work experience and expertise in handling different cases. You can highlight your accomplishments in the job description. -
Bulletin
You can also use this bulletin template to showcase your numerous abilities, qualifications, certifications, licenses and professional exposure elegantly. If you desire a formal resume template with fewer embellishments, this is the one for you.
9 Law Resume Examples
Resumes are unique as they vary by career needs and aspirations. Resume formats are another factor contributing to the differences among resumes. Most resumes are drafted in a chronological, combination or functional format, each showcasing the career strengths of the candidate.
We have included law resume examples from each format to demonstrate their strengths and weaknesses.
Chronological Resume
A chronological resume is preferred by candidates with a rich and consistent career history with more than 10 years of experience. We recommend using this format for experienced law-based professionals like attorneys, law executives or legal secretaries.
The following examples will emphasize how the chronological format becomes ideal for these professions:
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1. Attorney: The chronological format works for Tanisha Duke, as she has over 10 years of experience in the legal field. The highlighted work history reveals the diverse role Tanisha undertook as an attorney assistant, conflict attorney and real estate attorney. If you are someone with a similar career history, go for a chronological format.
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2. Lawyer Executive: Lawyer executives are equipped to provide domain-specific legal expertise to their clients. Wren Pittman’s law career of 10 years has been highlighted using the chronological format. His professional exposure dominated his qualifications, laying out his refined skills over time.
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3. Legal Secretary: Legal secretaries need to project impeccable organizational skills to handle the needs of a legal office. Rahul Hendrix has utilized the chronological format to showcase his career accomplishments and trajectory, enabling him to undertake the role of a legal secretary. If your career scenario matches Rahul’s, go with the chronological format.
Combination Resume
The combination resume is the hybrid form of chronological and functional formats. This format positions the skills section before your work history and stresses the relevance of both. The combination format is best for individuals with a consistent career and midlevel experience of more than three years.
We recommend using the combination format for the following legal professions:
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1. Mediator: This combination resume highlights Amy Delarose’s seven years of experience and gradual career growth from social work assistant and patients’ rights advocate to her current placement as skilled mediator for the Better Business Bureau.
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2. Legal Records Manager:This combination law resume example demonstrates how this skilled candidate dedicated nine years to developing that administrative and court filing skills to become a reliable record manager.
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3. Contract Drafting Legal Specialist:Georgiana Frenching uses a streamlined one-page resume to lend equal importance to her drafting and organizational skills as well as her previous experience as a contract specialist and administrative professional.
Functional Resume
The functional resume is ideal for career beginners, inexperienced individuals and entry-level candidates or applicants looking to reenter the workforce. This resume weighs your professional skills and education over the limited work exposure.
As this format is not applicant tracking system (ATS) compliant, it should be adopted in specific career scenarios and is best suited for the above-mentioned candidates.
The following examples will show how law professionals can utilize functional format:
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1. Legal Analyst: Madeleine Rollin has efficiently adopted the functional format to upstage her professional skills, emphasizing her strengths, while pulling focus away from her limited and unsteady experience as an administrative assistant and law clerk. You can use this format if you encounter a similar career scenario.
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2. Legal Assistant: In IIori Cantrell’s case, the qualification summary and professional skills description are efficiently projected to de-emphasize her brief work experience. Her skills description enlightens the recruiters about the caliber and proficiency of what she can do.
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3. Legal Services Director:The inconsistent career history of Vernia Compton makes the functional format ideal in this case. Vernia highlights the project management, organization and data management skills in addition to a consolidated skills section to mask the unsteady career trajectory.
What Can You Earn as a Law Professional?
Before choosing your career path in law, it’s helpful to know the earning potential in the legal profession. The salary you pull in will vary by position, experience level, employment location and work setting.
We have compiled the following salary list based on different law professions by using the data from payscale.com:
Top Law Skills for Your Resume
Skills reflect your expertise and ability to execute the respective role. The presence of skills is detected throughout these sections of your resume expressing your soft, hard and technical expertise:
- Opening Statement: Ensure your opening statement, whether a career objective or a summary statement, includes one or more skills matching the job description of the position you’re applying for. For example, a legal secretary stresses their client assistance, document drafting and office administration skills, compared to a lawyer underlining their client counseling, negotiation and analytical skills.
- Skills Section: The skills section represents your diverse skill set with six to eight bulleted skills in a consolidated manner. For instance, if you opt for a legal service director’s position, you can mention your project management, data management, material procuring, organizing and scheduling expertise.
- Work History: You can utilize the work history to display how you applied your skills in a professional environment. For example, a real estate attorney can showcase conflict resolution skills by includingin their work history, “Resolved contractual disputes and exercised rights under real estate contracts.”
We have collected a list of soft, hard and technical skills beneficial for law professionals for you to review and draw inspiration for your own skill set.
Soft skills
Soft skills are predominant in every profession regardless of the industry. Soft skills represent your interpersonal and people skills dictating the relationship building and interactions in the workplace. The following soft skills are considered essential for a law professional:
- 1. Impeccable verbal and written communication
- 2. Ethical
- 3. Helping mentality
- 4. Keen listener and observer
- 5. Persistent
- 6. Conflict resolution
- 7. Problem-solving
- 8. Social awareness
- 9. Commercially aware
- 10. Highly organized
Hard skills
Hard skills are associated with your ability to implement the complex tasks of your role. These skills are acquired through education, training and hands-on experience. The hard skills associated with different law professions are listed below:
- 1. Legal counseling
- 2. Document filing
- 3. Strong analytical skills
- 4. Extensive researching ability
- 5. Office administration
- 6. Legal paperwork
- 7. Litigation skills
- 8. Contract negotiation
- 9. Project management
- 10. Case management
Technical skills
Technical skills represent how technically inclined you are in utilizing technical tools to carry out your role. The following technical skills are deemed necessary in the law profession:
- Proficient in MS Office
- AI platforms like Kira Systems, LawGeex and COIN
- Operating knowledge of computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones.
- Digital case management
- Meeting apps and software literacy, i.e., Skype, Google Meet, Slack or Quip
Best 5 Certifications for Your Law Resume
Certifications prove beneficial to promote your additional qualifications and competence, giving you an edge. Including job-specific certificates or licenses can boost your worth and favor your hiring chances. We have listed the top five certifications helpful for law professionals below:
- Certified Legal Secretary
- Certified Legal Assistant or Certified Paralegal
- Certified Corporate Law Analyst
- Certificate in Cybersecurity and Data Security Law
- Certificate in Criminal Justice
FAQ
What are the top three soft skills of law professionals?
The top skills of law professionals are dictated by profession and domain of expertise. An attorney who practices law will have a different skill set than a legal secretary. But these three skills are prevalent in most law professions:
- Documentation and paperwork
- Excellent communication skills
- In-depth knowledge of the legal system and state law
What do legal secretaries mention under a summary statement?
The summary statement of a legal secretary is created according to the position. The following bullet points should be included in the summary statement for a legal secretary:
- Add one or two skills mentioned in the role description to tailor the statement aligning with the role.
- Mention the skills and qualifications, such as certifications, licenses and education, that enable you to hold the legal secretary position.
- Inform how these skills can benefit the employer to enhance your value.
What are examples of duties of law professionals?
The key tasks and duties performed by a law professional depend on their role, work setting and experience level. We have a list of general duties across different law careers mentioned below for your reference:
- Conducting thorough research on local or regional legal issues and client cases.
- Intense paperwork for documenting and filing, such as contracts or case specifications.
- Manage calendars, appointments and scheduling meetings with the clients.
- Counseling and advising clients on legal matters.
- Interpreting and analyzing judgments passed on various cases.
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