How can I improve my legal CV?

Nov 22, 2021

Written By Jack Medforth

Your legal CV will often be an employer’s first impression of you, so it’s important to make sure it reflects your skills in the very best way. Here, we have some helpful advice about how to improve your legal CV, from content and language to structure and references.

Qualifications

Your CV should always include your academic qualifications; the better these are, the better first impression you’ll leave. Depending on the length of your CV, it could be beneficial to include the higher-marked modules from your degree qualification or a high A-level grade, if you think it could be relevant, particularly if these were legal modules or subjects.

Postgraduate qualifications

Whilst it’s not advisable to take additional university courses simply for the sake of your CV, many people do take extra postgraduate courses to improve their knowledge and boost their employability. This can definitely give your legal CV an edge over others.

However, be sure to research the preference of your future employers: some may favour candidates with lots of practical workplace experience instead of a string of academic qualifications.

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Relevant experience

Whether your aspirations lie in becoming a paralegal, a solicitor, or at the Bar, relevant work experience is always beneficial when applying for jobs. Whilst the perfect experience is obviously having spent time in a similar role, legal volunteering or even non-legal work experience can also be valuable in the eyes of employers.

Highlight what specific skills you gained in the role that will be transferable to your new job and demonstrate how that will help in your new position. For example, although working at a fast-food chain may not seem relevant, you may have gained valuable customer service skills and are experienced at working in a fast-paced environment. Show potential employers how these skills will come in handy in your future role!

Extra courses

It may also be worth considering undertaking some practical, short-term courses. There are many relevant ones designed to improve practical legal workplace skills, including legal research qualifications and mediation courses.

These can demonstrate to employers not only your enthusiasm for the legal profession but that you have built up the valuable, relevant skills that they’re looking for. However, courses like this vary in time and cost, so make sure to pick one that suits you as well as your means.

Tailor your CV to the audience

If you’re applying to a job that requires a certain skill set, you may want to include more information on roles that involved these skills and shorten other areas that are less relevant. For example, if you drafted legal documents in your previous job and are applying to a legal drafting role, go into more depth about your drafting abilities and if necessary, shorten passages on other less relevant experience.

Formatting tips

Remember to keep your CV looking professional and clear. Set the main body text of your CV between size 10 and 12 font and the heading to no more than size 18. There is no ‘correct’ font type but keep in mind that it should look professional and remain consistent throughout the document. Whilst more unusual CVs may be advantageous in other industries, remember that the legal sector is more traditional; plus your ability to write a clear, concise CV in grammatically correct English is directly relevant to the skills required in the legal profession.

Proofread

Proofread, proofread, proofread. This point cannot be repeated enough! There’s not much worse than a CV full of grammatical errors, especially in an industry that requires precision and attention to the written word. Take a break of a day or two after writing your CV to go back and reread it, before asking someone else to read it through too.

A good tip is to highlight the text and have your computer read the words back to you: often hearing the mistakes out loud makes them much easier to catch!

Careers advisers

If you have access to one, have a professional or a careers adviser read over your legal CV. Careers advisers are an underused resource at university and will often read through your application if you ask for help, offering structural or industry-specific advice and catching mistakes that slipped past your proofreading.

If you don’t have access to a careers adviser, see if you can have a legal professional read over your CV. If you don’t have any direct contacts yourself, plenty of firms and charities run mentoring schemes that connect students with working professionals.

Remember: your CV does not only provide an employer with a list of your achievements, but also demonstrates your ability to write clearly and professionally. Therefore, whilst the content of your CV remains the most important element, don’t underestimate the importance of keeping it sharp, professional and error free.

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