Examples & writing guide
General Counsel CV Example and Writing Guide for 2026
Updated 9 July 2026
A General Counsel CV has to make a large, varied career easy to grasp. This guide explains how to present legal leadership, commercial judgement and measurable results without burying the reader in matter lists or routine duties. It covers the personal statement, career history, qualifications and supporting sections, with examples of how to turn work involving executives, legal teams, transactions, compliance and disputes into concise evidence. For a broader legal application, the legal CV guide is a closer fit.
Examples by experience level
General Counsel
TemplateAshford1 / 5
Why this works
This example connects legal judgement to commercial decisions, team leadership, controlled external spend and measurable improvements in contracts, compliance and disputes.
Continue writing your CVSenior General Counsel
TemplateGrey Frame5 / 5
Why this works
Shows board-level judgement, leadership across a sizeable legal function and defensible commercial outcomes, with each achievement tied to scale, cost, time or risk.
Continue writing your CVJunior vs senior: what changes
| Aspect | Junior | Senior |
|---|---|---|
| Scope of advice | Show examples of advising business teams and contributing legal analysis to defined matters, with clear boundaries around personal responsibility. | Show direct advice to the CEO, board or senior executives on governance, regulatory risk, acquisitions, employment policy or other decisions affecting the organisation. |
| Leadership evidence | Focus on coordinating matters, supporting colleagues and building trusted relationships across the organisation. | State the size and structure of the legal function, leadership responsibilities, performance management and how work was allocated against organisational risks. |
| Commercial contribution | Connect legal work to a practical business need, such as quicker contracting, clearer guidance or better handling of a defined risk. | Show how legal input shaped strategy, surfaced obstacles early, supported annual planning and accounted for the cost of legal work. |
| Achievement scale | Use modest, defensible measures such as matter volumes, response times, contract turnaround or participation in a project. | Use broader measures such as legal budget, team size, external-counsel spend, transaction scope, portfolio value or organisation-wide compliance outcomes. |
| Operational breadth | Emphasise strong delivery in the legal areas actually handled, without implying ownership of the whole function. | Demonstrate oversight across relevant areas such as contracts, disputes, compliance, governance, external firms and departmental budgets, while reflecting the organisation's actual business. |
| CV structure | Keep the document focused on relevant progression, transferable evidence and recent accomplishments. | Allow enough space for a substantial career record, but use clear headings and give recent experience the greatest weight so the document remains quick to navigate. |
How to write a general counsel CV
Use a clear reverse-chronological format, beginning with contact details and a focused personal statement. Follow with a compact skills section, professional experience, education and relevant additional information. Give recent roles the most space, but retain enough earlier history to show how you progressed towards General Counsel responsibility.
There is no fixed two-page rule for a General Counsel CV. Length should follow substance: include enough detail to establish technical range, commercial contribution, leadership and career progression, then remove repetition. Three pages may read better than two cramped pages if every entry earns its place. Use plain headings, generous spacing and conventional fonts so a reader can find evidence quickly.
| Section | What to include | What to leave out |
|---|---|---|
| Personal statement | Current level, organisational context, strongest legal scope and two credible outcomes | Generic claims about being driven or results-focused |
| Experience | Employer context, reporting line where useful, remit, team or budget scale, and measured achievements | Long lists of routine duties or confidential matter details |
| Skills | Expertise that matches the vacancy, grouped under short headings if the list is extensive | Every area of law encountered during a long career |
| Education | Awarded qualifications, institution and completion date | Unexplained acronyms or courses unrelated to the role |
| Extras | Relevant languages, publications, voluntary appointments or sector activity | Personal details that do not support the application |
Tailor the emphasis to the job description. A vacancy centred on acquisitions needs different evidence from one focused on compliance transformation or contentious risk. Applicants with unusually broad experience may keep more than one CV version, each truthful but weighted towards a different type of role.
Write each position with a short scope line followed by achievement bullets. Keep promotions under the same employer and date each title separately; this makes progression visible without repeating company information.
Personal statement examples
Commercial General Counsel with 15 years of legal experience, including six years leading in-house functions for multi-site organisations. Advises boards and executive teams on governance, regulatory risk, acquisitions and employment policy, while directing internal lawyers and external firms. Led a legal operating-model review that cut annual external spend by 18% and introduced earlier legal input into strategic projects, reducing contract approval time from 12 days to seven.
Experienced lawyer seeking a challenging General Counsel position. Hard-working, strategic and an excellent communicator with broad legal knowledge. Able to manage many tasks and work well with senior stakeholders.
Writing your experience
Treat each bullet as a small piece of evidence. Start with the decision or action you owned, state its scale, then give the result. Useful measures include legal spend, contract turnaround, team size, portfolio value, matter volume, training coverage, audit findings, settlement exposure or time saved. A percentage is only helpful when the reader can understand what changed.
The strongest entries show how legal work affected the organisation. General Counsel commonly oversee organisational legal issues, internal lawyers and external firms. They may advise the CEO, board and senior executives on governance, regulatory risk, acquisitions, employment policies and executive compensation. Depending on the organisation, their remit can also cover compliance programmes, disputes, contracts and major transactions. Your bullets should therefore connect legal judgement to a business decision, controlled exposure or improved operating process.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Responsible for managing external counsel. | Consolidated a panel of 14 external firms to eight, introduced matter budgets and reduced annual external spend by 16%. |
| Supported the compliance programme. | Rebuilt the compliance review calendar across 11 business units, closed 27 overdue actions and achieved 96% completion of assigned training. |
| Assisted with commercial contracts. | Redesigned triage for 420 annual supplier and customer contracts, cutting median approval time from 10 working days to six. |
For disputes, state the portfolio or exposure you managed and the outcome without disclosing privileged or confidential information. For transactions, clarify your part in due diligence, structuring or closing and give a defensible value or timetable. Where proprietary technology, brands or creative works matter to the employer, evidence work on registrations, infringement monitoring or enforcement only if it formed part of your actual remit.
Good verbs include advised, negotiated, directed, resolved, consolidated, redesigned, implemented, remediated, governed, structured and reduced. Avoid opening every bullet with "responsible for" or "involved in" because neither explains your contribution.
Give recent positions three to five carefully selected bullets and compress older roles. If you were promoted, show each title and its dates beneath the employer. This lets the reader see increasing scope, rather than forcing them to infer it from a dense paragraph.
Key skills & ATS keywords
Hard skills
Soft skills
ATS keywords
Education & certifications
List awarded qualifications in reverse-chronological order, giving the qualification name, institution and completion year. Add a brief distinction, prize or relevant specialism only when it helps the application. Keep professional development selective: recent study tied to the target role is more useful than a catalogue of every seminar attended.
The supplied role evidence does not establish one universal degree, conversion course, practising route or named certification for every General Counsel applicant. Do not present a fictional route as a blanket entry requirement. Instead, state your own exact legal qualifications and credentials, then use the experience section to show how you have applied them. If the advert asks for a role-specific qualification, reproduce its exact name only when you genuinely hold it.
For General Counsel who are solicitors in England and Wales, the regulated route requires compliance with the SRA's Code of Conduct and Principles. In-house solicitors in that jurisdiction are also required to act with integrity and independence, uphold the rule of law and proper administration of justice, and maintain public trust and confidence in the solicitors profession. Keep this information factual and avoid implying that the same regulated requirements apply to every General Counsel role or jurisdiction.
Regular training on regulatory obligations and professional ethics is optional supporting development for in-house solicitors. It may be included under professional development when recent and relevant, using the course title, provider and year. Do not label attendance as a certification unless an award was actually issued.
Common mistakes to avoid
AvoidUsing one broad CV for every General Counsel vacancy, with the same emphasis regardless of the organisation's priorities.
InsteadTailor the opening profile, skills and recent achievements to the job description. Bring forward the legal expertise, leadership and commercial work that best match that particular appointment.
AvoidListing legal responsibilities without showing what changed because of the candidate's work.
InsteadAdd defensible measures of scope and outcome, such as team size, outside-counsel spend, contract volume, project value, turnaround time or reduction in identified risk. Use only figures that can be explained at interview.
AvoidGiving every role equal space, so older work crowds out the evidence most relevant to a senior appointment.
InsteadGive recent experience precedence, then retain enough earlier history to show career progression and the route into senior in-house leadership.
AvoidHiding promotions inside a single undated block of responsibilities.
InsteadWhere promotions occurred with one employer, list each title with its own dates beneath that employer. This makes increasing responsibility easy to follow.
AvoidCompressing substantial experience into two pages at the cost of useful evidence.
InsteadUse the space needed to demonstrate technical, commercial and interpersonal strength. Keep the layout concise, remove repetition and make every additional line earn its place.
AvoidPresenting a dense skills list that mixes legal disciplines, leadership strengths and sector knowledge without structure.
InsteadFor a senior application, group skills under short headings when that helps the reader distinguish legal expertise, commercial leadership and operational management.
Frequently asked questions
There is no fixed two-page rule. Use enough space to demonstrate technical, commercial and interpersonal strength, career progression and relevant experience, but cut repetition and keep the structure easy to scan.
Yes, tailoring is strongly recommended in this CV-writing context. Match the personal statement, skills and most relevant achievements to the job description, especially where your background covers several sectors or legal disciplines.
Use figures you can defend for matters such as team size, legal spend, contract volumes, turnaround time, transactions, disputes or compliance activity. Pair each measure with the action taken and the business or risk outcome.
List the employer once, then show each promoted title with separate dates and achievements. This lets the reader see progression in responsibility without duplicating company information.
No. Under British CV conventions, omit both and use the space for contact details, a focused personal statement and evidence relevant to the appointment.
Build the case through evidence of increasing scope: executive advice, legal-team or external-firm management, commercial judgement, governance, compliance and resource prioritisation where these formed part of your work. Keep the wording accurate about what you owned, influenced and supported.
From example to application
Turn this general counsel example into a CV that sounds like you.
Keep the structure that works. Tailor the details around your experience, strengths, and the role you want.