Lawyer CV example and writing guide

Use a clean, reverse-chronological format, beginning with your current or most recent position. Two pages is a practical working target for many applications, but relevance and readability matter more than reaching an exact length. Choose a restrained lawyer CV template with clear headings, consistent dates and enough white space for quick scanning. Under British CV conventions, leave out your photo and date of birth.

Shape the application around the vacancy

Open with a lawyer personal statement of two or three sentences. State your career level and legal focus, then support them with evidence such as caseload scope, drafting volume, turnaround time or responsibility for particular matters. For a junior lawyer CV with limited professional experience, draw carefully on placements, clinics, academic work and transferable client service. Describe your position accurately: use the title you held rather than wording that implies a different professional status.

Give work history the largest share of space. Under each legal position, use concise bullets covering relevant responsibilities, notable work and results. Legal work may include advising clients, drafting legal documents and representing people in court. Include only work you personally performed, and describe your contribution without naming clients or revealing confidential matter details.

Keep the skills section selective. Combine relevant hard and soft skills, but let the experience section prove them. Present education clearly, starting with your most recent degree or course. Put any role-specific qualification or specialist training under a plainly labelled heading, with its accurate completion status and date. Extras deserve space only when they strengthen the application, such as a relevant language used professionally or volunteering that involved legal research, writing or client contact.

Before sending the CV, compare every line with the vacancy. Repeat useful terminology naturally where it describes your genuine experience, remove points that do not help this application and check that dates, titles and formatting agree throughout.

Treat each experience bullet as a small piece of evidence. Start with the action, add the scope of the work and finish with the result. A useful formula is: action + matter or workload + measured outcome. Metrics need not disclose financial values or client identities. You can use verified turnaround times, caseload ranges, completion rates, drafting volumes or reductions in overdue work. Never estimate a number simply because a lawyer CV sample contains one.

These figures are illustrative. Replace them with facts from your own records only when you can explain and defend them. If reliable figures are unavailable, use precise scope instead: the type of document, your part in the matter, the audience for your advice or the stage at which you became involved.

Solicitors may translate clients' issues into legal terms, research and prepare cases, liaise with other legal professionals, and represent or defend clients' legal interests. Where that matches your work, go beyond naming the task. Explain how you organised facts, identified strengths and weaknesses, referred to legal authority, dealt with witnesses or responded to opposing arguments. Barristers in England and Wales research points of law and advise clients on their cases, so their bullets can give more weight to legal analysis, written advice and case preparation. Keep the wording faithful to your actual role and professional route.

For a junior application, evidence might come from a supervised file, legal clinic, placement or carefully described academic project. State what you did and who reviewed it. At a more experienced level, show broader matter ownership, competing deadlines, delegation, client responsibility or improvements to team processes. Seniority should appear through scope and judgement, not adjectives such as "seasoned" or "exceptional".

Useful opening verbs include advised, drafted, reviewed, researched, prepared, negotiated, represented, analysed, resolved, coordinated and presented. Pick the verb that describes your contribution most accurately. Forced variation makes the meaning less precise. Avoid claims such as "won every case" or "guaranteed compliance" because they strip away context and are difficult to substantiate.

List education in reverse-chronological order. For each entry, give the exact qualification, institution and dates. Add a classification, relevant module or project only when it helps the reader assess your fit for the vacancy. If study is ongoing, state the expected completion date rather than letting the layout imply that you have finished. Relevant specialist courses can be included, provided their titles and completion status are accurate.

Legal routes are not interchangeable. In England and Wales, LLB Law enables applicants without an undergraduate degree to progress towards later professional-qualification stages as a barrister. For applicants who already have a UK undergraduate degree in another discipline, the Graduate Diploma in Law covers the Foundational Law subjects needed for the relevant later examinations and eligibility to apply for Bar training. Present either academic route without suggesting that the award itself proves professional admission or authorisation.

The Professional Skills Course (PSC) is the final compulsory part of training for trainee solicitors before qualifying as a solicitor. Place it under professional training and state whether it is completed or in progress, together with the date. This requirement belongs to that specific training route rather than every legal career.

Applicants for admission as a Chartered Legal Executive must complete approved qualifications and at least three years of qualifying employment before applying. The application also requires a portfolio of log sheets and evidence demonstrating the relevant competencies. These are admission-route rules, so present your own progress precisely and do not use the professional title prematurely.

Lawyers qualified in the EU/EEA, including Irish-qualified professionals, or Switzerland may apply to be authorised as a CILEX Practitioner through the mutual recognition of professional qualifications process. Overseas professionals outside the EU/EEA or Switzerland seeking admission as a Chartered Legal Executive must re-qualify through the route for new professionals. Because these provisions apply to defined groups, your CV should name only the route and status that genuinely apply to you.

Keep route information in one clearly labelled section. Record the exact professional title, admission or training status you hold. Put a role-specific qualification beside its institution, dates and completion status, and give professional training the same clarity. A reader should not have to infer whether a course is planned, in progress or completed.