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As an experienced attorney, you've spent years honing your legal acumen and negotiation skills. Now, your professional journey has brought you to a junction where your skills, strengths, and experiences become your greatest assets. The legal landscape is constantly evolving with new statutes, regulations, and technological advancements playing prominent roles. These changes need to be reflected in your resume. You'll want to demonstrate an understanding of these trends, alongside a proven track record in legal practice.
The legal world, unlike many other sectors, prioritizes a traditional, no-frills approach when it comes to resumes. While creativity is appreciated in your litigation strategies, when it comes to your resume, simplicity is king. It must reflect your ability to distill complex information into clear, concise expressions - a skill invaluable to an experienced attorney.
Over your career, you've likely specialized in certain areas of law. Whether it's corporate, family, criminal, or intellectual property law, you should highlight your specialty and illustrate your achievements in that area. This will show potential employers your depth of knowledge and your capacity to handle specific legal cases.
As an experienced attorney, you've presumably led and won several cases. Detail these on your resume, focusing on victories that had a significant impact. Include specifics about the case, your role, and the positive outcome. This paints a picture of your litigation prowess and indicates the value you can bring to a new firm.
As a senior or experienced attorney, you should be able to demonstrate a strong track record of success, including securing positive outcomes for clients and experience overseeing more junior employees. As an experienced lawyer, you’ll take on more of a management role — making leadership skills essential — as well as more responsibility providing expert legal advice, collaborating with other teams, and drafting important legal documents.
If you’re applying for a senior-level position, employers are going to be looking for a history of career growth. Highlight promotions by listing the job titles separately under the same company heading, including separate bullet points if the positions were significantly different. Even without a formal promotion, you can demonstrate growth by emphasizing a progression of responsibilities in your accomplishments.
As you take on more experienced positions, you’ll also be expected to broaden your skill set. As an experienced attorney, you’ll need a wider range of transferable skills, which you can demonstrate through your accomplishments. Developing new programs, managing a team, or supervising junior staff are all great ways of showing leadership and initiative.
As a hiring manager who has recruited attorneys at top law firms and corporations, I've reviewed hundreds of resumes. The best resumes for experienced attorneys are those that effectively highlight their legal expertise, key accomplishments, and career progression. To help you create a compelling resume, I've compiled a list of tips that will make your resume stand out to employers.
Highlight your specialized legal knowledge and experience that is relevant to the position you're applying for. This can include:
For example:
Experienced corporate attorney with deep expertise in securities law and SEC regulations. Advised clients on compliance issues and successfully handled SEC investigations.
For experienced attorneys, a resume summary is optional. Your resume itself is already a summary of your qualifications and experience. However, a well-crafted summary can provide additional context and highlight key details that may not be immediately apparent in the rest of your resume.
This is particularly useful if you are making a career change and your past experience doesn't directly align with the legal roles you are now pursuing. Executives with extensive experience can also benefit from a summary that distills their most relevant qualifications.
Avoid using an objective statement, as these are outdated and focus on what you want rather than what you can offer an employer. Instead, focus on crafting a concise, impactful summary that complements rather than repeats the information in the rest of your resume.
Your work experience section is the heart of your resume as an experienced attorney. It's where you showcase your legal expertise, accomplishments, and the value you've brought to previous employers or clients. Let's break down the key steps to write an effective work experience section that will impress hiring managers and help you land your next legal role.
When describing your work experience, use powerful action verbs that are specific to the legal industry to start each bullet point. This immediately grabs the attention of the reader and highlights your abilities.
Examples of strong legal action verbs include:
Avoid generic, overused verbs like 'managed', 'handled' or 'responsible for'. Instead, choose verbs that paint a vivid picture of your legal skills in action.
The education section of your attorney resume is important to show hiring managers you have the right academic background. This section is especially key if you are a recent law school graduate. Here are tips to write an effective education section on your experienced attorney resume:
The skills section of your resume is a crucial component that showcases your abilities and expertise to potential employers. As an experienced attorney, it's essential to highlight the specific skills that are most relevant to your practice area and the job you're applying for. In this section, we'll guide you through the process of crafting a compelling skills section that will catch the attention of hiring managers and demonstrate your value as a candidate.
Here are examples of popular skills from Experienced Attorney job descriptions that you can include on your resume.
This word cloud highlights the important keywords that appear on Experienced Attorney job descriptions and resumes. The bigger the word, the more frequently it appears on job postings, and the more likely you should include it in your resume.
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