Origin Legal

Expert guidance for legal careers

CV Template for NQ Solicitors

CV of

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Summarise (a third to half page) your experience and show how it fits the role. Consider referencing:

Your chosen practice area and drawing attention to relevant experience as a trainee;
Any stand-out Commercial, Business Development and Client facing skills/experience;
Previous experience of living or working overseas; any prior exposure to the target market;
Only exceptional academic or extracurricular achievements;
What you are looking for in a new role and why an offshore/international move attracts you;
Avoid excessive repetition of detail from the following CV.

Legal admission(s) including month, year and jurisdiction;
Academic and professional studies in reverse order, most recent first back to GCSE/equivalent;
Include dates (month and year), institution, location, studies and overall results;
Where relevant, indicate ‘equivalent grades’ (e.g. GPA 63% equivalent to a UK 2.1);
Keep detail of individual modules to a minimum;
Brief mention of awards, prizes, scholarships;
Include fluent or near fluent languages (if multilingual this may merit a dedicated section).

Training Contract

Detail your training contract including dates (month and year), firm, location(s) and seats;
Seats should be listed in order of relevance not chronologically;
Devote space according to relevance. E.g. ten bullet points for the directly relevant seat, five bullet points for a partially relevant seat and a couple for an irrelevant seat;
Avoid repetition of duties; a summary of your duties and then a list of matters works better;
Outline areas where your experience has been exceptional such as large amounts of responsibility or active involvement in business development;
Consider using any short, positive quotes from your appraisals or supervising partners.

Paralegal

For lengthy periods of time in particularly relevant paralegal roles, include a similar level of detail to that for a relevant training seat.
For short term roles or less relevant practice areas a short description should suffice.
Outline any particularly strong transferable skills that have subsequently served you well.

Internships/Work experience:

Bullet point list should suffice – you need only include dates, firm, location and practice area.

Adapt as required, the following headings are optional and should only be included if relevant.

Non-Legal Work experience

For relevant or lengthy roles, include a summary, otherwise a bullet point list will suffice;
Where including non-legal experience, draw on relevant transferable skills;
Part-time jobs whilst studying, unless making a material difference, need not be included.

Voluntary Work

Published Articles; Public Speaking/Seminars

Memberships

Awards

Interests

CV gaps

If you have taken time out to travel for example, it can be useful to reference it here.

About The Author

Taylor Day