Your law school application provides the admissions committee with the narrative of your life, and the resume you submit with your application serves as a great starting point for telling your story. In this post, we explain three “musts” to keep in mind when creating your resume that will help you make it as effective as possible.
1. Always follow the school’s instructions.
As with every aspect of your law school application, you want to follow the application instructions explicitly when preparing your resume. If the admissions committee asks you to limit your resume to one page, for example, or to use a certain font size, make sure to do exactly that and submit a one-page resume with the requested font size. Disregarding the school’s specifications will not reflect well on you, potentially implying a lack of attention to detail, or worse.
2. Don’t leave any gaps.
On your law school application resume, you should generally present your entire professional experience from the beginning of your undergraduate career to the current date. Do not include references to positions you had in high school. If you are applying to law school directly from college, you might be tempted to mention the wonderful awards you won and lifeguarding positions you had before college, but fight that impulse.
Include all part-time, full-time, paid, and unpaid endeavors from your first year of college until the point of application. Do not leave any gaps. If you traveled during the summer between your sophomore and junior year rather than holding a job, that’s great, but you still need to account for that time on your resume. Committees want to understand how you have spent all your time, as do bar examiners. Why are we concerned about bar examiners at this point? They will have access to your law school application and will hold you accountable for all the information provided. This means that in three and a half years, when you’re applying for the bar, examiners might ask you to explain what you were doing for the two months in the summer of 2023 that you didn’t cover on your application resume. It’s easier to answer those questions proactively now.
3. Understand that it’s okay to list positions you’ve held outside of law.
Committees are not looking for law-specific work experience only. If you do not have a job as a paralegal, that is okay. I have seen flight attendants, bartenders, and firefighters admitted to law school and do quite well. When listing any work experience on your resume, be sure to provide ample detail about your responsibilities. You also want to emphasize any leadership roles you have held and highlight jobs and tasks that demonstrate your communication skills. In addition, you can include interests and activities that you enjoy in your free time. For example, do you like to learn new languages, run marathons, bake, or play video games? Let the admissions committee know! Schools are interested in understanding how you balance your life and work. Do you have an outlet that could assist you in managing the stress of law school? Although having a hobby or outside interest is not a prerequisite for admission, it can provide depth and context, thereby enriching your application.
If you’d like to see an example of a good law school admissions resume, check out this sample resume.
Daniel Waldman is a graduate of Harvard Law School and an experienced law school admissions consultant with a background in corporate income tax and large-scale securitization taxation issues.
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