Attorney resume examples written for the partner who reads them.
Your resume is screened by someone who practises law. They check three things before anything else: where you are admitted and whether the licence is active, what you have actually done at the level you claim, and whether you understand what you may not put in writing. That last one quietly disqualifies people — a matter description with a named client and an unflattering detail tells a hiring partner you would do the same to them. This guide covers the admissions block, matter descriptions that stay inside Model Rule 1.6, and how to write experience for a market where the median salary describes almost nobody.
- Ideal length
- 1 page (2 after ~10 yrs)
- First check
- Bar admission + status
- Matters
- Described, never named
- Median (May 2024)
- $151,160
Daniel Okafor
Commercial Litigation Associate · 5th Year
Chicago, IL · admitted IL (2021) and NY (2022) · linkedin.com/in/danielokafor
Summary
Fifth-year commercial litigation associate admitted in Illinois and New York, with first-chair deposition and dispositive-motion experience in contract, trade-secret and fiduciary-duty disputes. Second-chaired a two-week bench trial; drafted the summary-judgment briefing that disposed of four of six claims in a $40M dispute. Carry a 1,950-hour billable year while running the firm's summer-associate writing programme.
Experience
Associate, Commercial Litigation · Mid-size Chicago litigation firm (~120 attorneys)
2021 — Present
- Drafted and argued dispositive motions in commercial disputes; briefing on a $40M contract matter disposed of four of six claims at summary judgment.
- Took and defended 30+ depositions, including three corporate representatives under Rule 30(b)(6).
- Second-chaired a two-week bench trial — witness outlines, exhibit management and the closing brief.
- Manage discovery across 15–20 active matters, including ESI protocol negotiation and privilege review.
- Billed 1,950 hours in 2025 while supervising two junior associates and the summer writing programme.
Judicial Law Clerk · U.S. District Court, N.D. Illinois
2020 — 2021
- Drafted opinions and orders on dispositive and discovery motions across a civil docket.
- Reviewed briefing in roughly 120 civil matters; prepared bench memoranda for hearings and settlement conferences.
Skills
Education
J.D., Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, 2020 — cum laude; Law Review, Articles Editor · B.A. Economics, University of Michigan, 2017
Certifications
Admitted: Illinois (2021, active) · New York (2022, active) · N.D. Ill. trial bar · U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Languages
English (native) · Igbo (conversational)
Why this example works
Admissions sit in the contact line and again in full
Jurisdiction, year and status. A hiring partner cannot staff you on a matter without knowing where you are licensed, and 'bar admitted' with no jurisdiction is the most common self-inflicted wound on an attorney resume. Federal court and circuit admissions belong here too — they are staffing facts, not decoration.
Matters are described, never identified
'A $40M contract matter', 'three corporate representatives' — scale and complexity without a client name. Model Rule 1.6 confidentiality survives the engagement, and a resume that leaks it demonstrates precisely the judgement failure a partner is screening for. Publicly filed, published matters are the narrow exception.
The verbs match the seniority claimed
'Drafted and argued', 'took and defended', 'second-chaired' — each is a checkable level marker. A fifth-year who writes 'managed all aspects of litigation' invites the interview question they cannot answer. Hours are here too: billables are how the business measures you.
Attorney resume summary examples
Three to four lines: scope, stack or specialism, one quantified win. Match the register to your seniority.
Entry / recent graduate
Recent J.D. admitted in Illinois (2026) with judicial-externship and clinic experience in civil litigation. Drafted bench memoranda on dispositive motions for a federal magistrate judge and represented three clients through eviction defence in the housing clinic under supervision. Law Review editor; strong research and writing samples available. Seeking a litigation associate seat.
Junior associate (1–3 years)
Third-year associate admitted in New York, practising commercial litigation and employment defence. Draft discovery, dispositive and pretrial motions; took my first six depositions this year. Manage discovery on 12 active matters and carry a 1,900-hour target. Comfortable with ESI protocols and the privilege-review workflow that comes with them.
Mid-level associate (4–6 years)
Fifth-year commercial litigation associate admitted in Illinois and New York with first-chair deposition and dispositive-motion experience. Second-chaired a two-week bench trial and drafted the summary-judgment briefing that disposed of four of six claims in a $40M dispute. Supervise junior associates and run the summer writing programme.
Senior associate / counsel
Senior associate with nine years in transactional work — M&A, financings and commercial agreements — admitted in Delaware and New York. Led diligence and drafting on 20+ deals from $5M to $300M, running the closing checklist and the client relationship day to day. Originated two new clients through prior-deal referrals.
In-house counsel
In-house counsel supporting a 900-person SaaS business: commercial contracting, data protection, and employment matters. Own the contract playbook and the sales-contract queue — reduced average turnaround on standard MSAs from 11 days to 4. Manage outside counsel spend against a $1.4M budget and advise the product team on GDPR and CCPA obligations.
Public interest / government
Assistant public defender with six years and 40+ jury trials in felony and misdemeanour matters, admitted in Georgia. Carry an active caseload of roughly 90 clients; secured dismissal or acquittal in 18 felony matters last year. Trial-tested, fast on suppression practice, and used to making decisions with incomplete discovery and no time.
Skills that belong on an attorney resume
Litigation
- Dispositive motion practice
- Depositions (taking and defending)
- E-discovery / ESI protocols
- Trial preparation and examination
- Civil procedure (federal and state)
- Appellate briefing
Transactional
- M&A and due diligence
- Commercial contract drafting
- Corporate governance
- Securities and financings
- Licensing and IP agreements
- Closing management
Practice tools and counselling
- Westlaw / Lexis+ / Bloomberg Law
- Document management (iManage, NetDocuments)
- Client counselling
- Regulatory compliance advice
- Outside-counsel and budget management
- Billable-hour discipline
Bullet point formulas that get interviews
Fill the brackets with your numbers — the structure does the selling.
- Drafted and argued [motion type] in a [scale] matter — e.g. “Drafted summary-judgment briefing that disposed of four of six claims in a $40M contract dispute.”
- Took/defended [n] depositions — e.g. “Took and defended 30+ depositions, including three Rule 30(b)(6) witnesses.”
- First- or second-chaired [proceeding] — e.g. “Second-chaired a two-week bench trial; drafted the closing brief.”
- Closed [n] deals from $[x] to $[y] — e.g. “Led diligence and drafting on 20+ transactions from $5M to $300M.”
- Cut [process] turnaround from [x] to [y] — e.g. “Reduced standard MSA turnaround from 11 days to 4 by rewriting the playbook.”
- Managed a caseload of [n] matters/clients — e.g. “Carried 15–20 active matters including ESI protocol negotiation.”
- Billed [n] hours — e.g. “Billed 1,950 hours in 2025 while supervising two junior associates.”
- Managed outside counsel spend of $[amount] — e.g. “Managed a $1.4M outside-counsel budget across six firms.”
- Secured [outcome] in [n] matters — e.g. “Secured dismissal or acquittal in 18 felony matters last year.”
- Advised [function] on [regime] — e.g. “Advised product on GDPR and CCPA obligations for a new data pipeline.”
ATS keywords for attorney roles
Filters match tokens from the posting. These are the terms worth mirroring — verbatim — when they appear in the job ad.
| Keyword | Priority |
|---|---|
| bar admission (with jurisdiction and year) | High |
| practice area named: commercial litigation, M&A, employment, IP | High |
| motion practice / dispositive motions | High |
| depositions | High |
| due diligence | High |
| contract drafting and negotiation | High |
| legal research: Westlaw, Lexis+, Bloomberg Law | High |
| discovery / e-discovery / ESI | High |
| trial experience (first chair, second chair) | Medium |
| regulatory compliance | Medium |
| client counselling | Medium |
| judicial clerkship | Medium |
| billable hours | Medium |
| corporate governance | Medium |
Don't guess — score your resume against the specific posting and see exactly which terms are missing.
How to write an attorney resume
Write the admissions block as a licensing fact
Every jurisdiction, the year, and the status — active, inactive, or admission pending with the sitting date. Add federal district and circuit admissions where you have them; they determine what you can be staffed on. If you are waiting on results or planning to waive in, say so with the date rather than leaving it blank. Ambiguity here reads as evasion, and it is the first thing checked.
Describe matters without identifying them
Give scale, posture and complexity: 'a $40M breach-of-contract matter in federal court', 'a cross-border acquisition with three regulatory approvals'. Do not name clients, and do not include facts that would identify them, unless the matter is publicly filed and reported. Confidentiality under Model Rule 1.6 outlives the engagement — a resume that ignores that is evidence about how you would treat the next client.
Match your verbs to your actual level
'Second-chaired', 'took and defended', 'drafted and argued', 'led diligence' are level markers a partner will test in the interview. Inflation is detected immediately by someone who has done the job. If you supported rather than led, say supported — a precisely described junior contribution beats an overstated senior one.
Put the credentials the market screens on where they can be seen
Law school, graduation year, honours, journal and clerkship — these carry more weight in legal hiring than in almost any other field, and for lateral candidates they stay on the page for years. Include your class rank or honours if they help; leave them off rather than fudging if they do not.
Tailor to the seat, not just the firm
Litigation, transactional, regulatory and in-house roles read for different evidence: trial and motion practice, deal count and closing management, agency experience, or business-partnering and budget control. Lead with the half of your experience that matches the posting, and mirror the practice-area vocabulary the posting uses.
Skip the blank page.
Build this resume in Resumap — free templates, unwatermarked PDF, and an ATS check against the exact posting when you're ready.
Start freeMistakes that filter attorneys out
'Licensed attorney' with no jurisdiction or status
Name every jurisdiction with the year and whether it is active. A hiring partner cannot staff work without it, and vagueness reads as something being hidden.
Naming clients or matters that were never public
Describe the matter by size, posture and industry instead. Rule 1.6 does not expire, and the reader is exactly the person who knows that.
Overstating your role on a big matter
'Managed all aspects of litigation' invites a question you cannot answer. Say what you drafted, argued, took or defended.
A skills section full of generic soft skills
'Strong analytical skills' is assumed of anyone with a J.D. Use the space for practice areas, procedural experience and platforms.
Omitting the clerkship or burying it
Clerkships are a persistent hiring signal in litigation. Give the court, the judge's chambers and the term.
Hiding a gap or a bar-passage delay
State it plainly. Legal hiring runs character-and-fitness checks and verifies admission dates; a discrepancy discovered later is far worse than one explained early.
Running to three pages as a mid-level associate
One page through the junior years, two after roughly a decade. Partners read the first third and decide.
Attorney salary ranges (US)
United States market. Absolute figures differ by country — the gaps between levels travel better than the numbers.
| 10th percentile | under $72,780 |
| Median (all lawyers, May 2024) | $151,160 |
| 90th percentile | above $239,200 |
| Public interest / small firm | typically well below the median |
| Large-firm associate scale | typically well above the median |
BLS median for lawyers is $151,160 (May 2024); 10th percentile $72,780, 90th above $239,200. Employment was 864,800 in 2024, projected +4% through 2034 with ~31,500 openings a year. Treat the median with care: lawyer pay is bimodal, clustering at large-firm scale on one side and public-interest, government and small-firm levels on the other, so very few attorneys actually earn near it.
Primary source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS/OOH). Self-reported aggregator figures are labelled as such.
Certifications worth listing
- State bar admission — the licence itself; list every jurisdiction with year and status, since it decides what you can be staffed on
- Federal court admissions (district courts, courts of appeals, and the trial bar where the district maintains one)
- Board certification in a specialty — offered by some state bars (Texas, Florida, California among them) in areas like civil trial law, family law and estate planning; a genuine differentiator where it exists
- LL.M. — meaningful in tax and, for foreign-qualified lawyers, often the route to US bar eligibility; rarely decisive elsewhere
- CIPP/US or CIPP/E — the privacy credential that matters for data-protection and technology-transactions seats
Templates that fit attorney resumes
Attorney resume FAQ
Where do bar admissions go on an attorney resume?
In the contact block as a short line, and again in full in a bar-admissions section with jurisdiction, year and status. Include federal district and circuit admissions. This is the first thing a hiring partner checks, so it should not require hunting.
How do I describe matters without breaching confidentiality?
Use size, posture, forum and industry — 'a $40M breach-of-contract matter in federal court for a logistics client'. Avoid names and any combination of facts that identifies the client. Publicly filed and reported matters are the exception, and even then it is worth asking whether naming adds anything the description did not.
Should I include my law school GPA or class rank?
Include honours, journal membership and rank if they are strong; legal hiring weights academic credentials longer than most fields, especially for lateral moves in the first decade. If they are not strong, omit them rather than presenting them ambiguously — experienced readers notice a missing number, but they notice a misleading one more.
Do billable hours belong on the resume?
For firm roles, yes. A stated target you met or exceeded is a credible business signal. For in-house, government and public-interest roles it is irrelevant — use caseload, deal count, budget or turnaround instead.
Is the BLS median a useful salary benchmark for lawyers?
Less than for most professions. The distribution is bimodal — large-firm scale on one side, public-interest, government and small-firm pay on the other — so the $151,160 median describes relatively few actual seats. Benchmark against the specific market and practice type you are applying into.
How long should an attorney resume be?
One page through the junior years and usually into the mid-level; two pages once you have a decade, a substantial matter list or a leadership record. Three pages is a CV, appropriate for academia and rarely for practice.
Will an ATS even see my resume for a law firm role?
Often, yes — large firms and in-house legal departments use applicant tracking software like any other employer, and practice-area terms are matched literally. Then a practising lawyer reads it. Write for both: exact practice vocabulary for the filter, precise level markers for the partner. Our own testing of 36 layouts through four production parsers showed the layout matters too — a clean text stream is what keeps the admissions block from arriving scrambled.
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