Law Clerk Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this Law Clerk resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
A law clerk is a person who works with lawyers, helping them research cases, write briefs, and decide how to proceed with their cases. They’re often hired right out of law school or after practicing as a paralegal or legal assistant.
As a law clerk, you’ll work directly with lawyers in their most important cases and projects. You’ll gain valuable experience that will look great on your resume and help you stand out when you apply for future jobs in the field of law.
Here are some tips to follow when writing your law clerk resume plus an example for reference.
How to Write a Law Clerk Resume
Here’s how to write a law clerk resume of your own.
Write Compelling Bullet Points
The best way to make your resume stand out is to use strong, specific language. And one of the best ways to do that is by using bullet points to describe your experience.
For example, rather than saying you “assisted attorneys with legal research,” you could say you “conducted extensive legal research on a wide variety of topics for a team of 15 attorneys, providing them with over 100 pages of analysis and citations for use in courtrooms across the state.”
The second bullet point paints a much clearer picture of what you did and the results of your work. And it also provides a specific number to demonstrate the scale of your work.
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
When you apply for a law clerk role, your resume is likely to be scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS) for certain keywords. These programs look for specific terms related to the job, like “trial experience” or “estate law” in order to determine whether your skills and experience match the job description. If you don’t have enough relevant keywords on your resume, the ATS might discard your application before a human ever sees it.
To make sure this doesn’t happen, focus on including keywords throughout all sections of your resume. Here are some of the most commonly used law clerk keywords:
- Legal Advice
- Legal Writing
- Litigation
- Civil Litigation
- Legal Research
- Westlaw
- Trials
- Legal Document Preparation
- Criminal Law
- Law
- Document Drafting
- Paralegals
- Corporate Law
- Mediation
- Family Law
- Criminal Justice
- Labor and Employment Law
- Contract Law
- Document Review
- Pleadings
- LexisNexis
- Legal Compliance
- Data Entry
- Microsoft Access
- Teamwork
- Research
- Time Management
- Public Speaking
- Customer Service
- Communication
Showcase Your Technical Skills
Law clerks use a variety of software programs and systems to complete their work, so it’s important to list any relevant technical skills you have. Programs like Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Google Suite (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar), and social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter are all commonly used by law clerks. Additionally, law clerks may be called on to use specific software programs relevant to their industry, so it’s important to be familiar with as many programs as possible.