As a legal resume writer (and former practicing lawyer for 12 years), I’ve written dozens of articles over the years with actionable steps and strategies for writing an effective legal resume. The methods we were taught in law school are very outdated (from the font, to the formatting, to the laundry list of bullet points). Writing a legal resume to land a top corporate counsel role is even tougher. The job search market for corporate counsels is more competitive and harder to break into than traditional law firm environments. There needs to be a careful delineation between real world application of law and the nuances of the different skills in law firm roles vs. corporate counsel roles, including transactional work vs. litigation. This is where a legal resume writer (who is a former lawyer and understands the nuances of the profession first-hand) can help market you in a more strategic way.
Your legal resume should be written by a former practicing lawyer who specializes (and is certified) in writing legal resumes.
Let me repeat that again: legal resumes should be written by former practicing lawyers. Writing a legal resume requires a different strategy than a standard executive resume. Lawyers think differently and apply those skills differently. When it comes to considering whether to hire a legal resume writing service or legal resume writer for help with your resume and next legal career opportunity, it’s best to partner with someone who understands and has been in the trenches of being a lawyer so they can advise you professionally on the best route for making a career transition out of law or making the leap from one practice area to the next. A former lawyer who is a trained legal resume writer will understand in depth how the profession works, as well as how to leverage the combination of your legal skills, your JD, relevant honors, and key representative engagements and transactions.
Legal Resume Writing is Different: A Legal Resume Must Highlight Legal Skills
Legal resume writing hinges on understanding the most prominent lawyer skills. These are an incredible trajectory of skills not easily found in other professions: deep analysis and logical reasoning, ability to discern fact from opinion, understanding how to apply evidence to facts, applying logic to complex situations to make circumstantial arguments, and thinking fast on your feet. In addition, lawyers have a multi-faceted skill set that can compete with and mirror business executives, thereby allowing a lot of lawyers to fall into the scope of hybrid roles that pivot between business and law. Lawyers are deemed to be better leaders because of their ability to use reason with logic as well as distill large volumes of information, see the big picture, but focus in on the important angle with clarity.
An informative article I have written on this topic can be found in the HuffPost: The 3 Reasons Why My Law Degree Has Made Me a Better Entrepreneur
In this article, I discuss how my law degree and the real world application of being a practicing attorney for more than a decade helped me to excel at being a better writer, and leveraging an actionable personal brand for myself and my own clients.
Making the Move from Law Firm Lawyer to Corporate Counsel
Thinking about going from law firm to in-house? It’s important to recognize that most corporate counsels maintain executive leadership in companies. In fact, quite often, 75% of their work is devoted to business leadership, strategy, and operations while only 25% is concentrated on legal advisory. Therefore, it’s important to understand how business truly intersects with law. Here is my Above the Law article which discusses how to make the transition from law firm lawyer to corporate counsel successfully.
For example, I served as an Assistant General Counsel for a private insurance company and as in-house counsel to a Fortune 200 insurance company. As a result, I understand how the two roles can offer similar skill facets, but offer different focuses on business risk and leadership value. The corporate governance side of in-house work depends on whether or not you’re partnering with boards of directors and stakeholders or you’re acting as staff counsel and just maintaining a high-volume caseload. This type of information can be drawn out in a branding strategy session with a legal resume writer.
Here’s a helpful blog post I’ve written from the perspective of being a lawyer: How to Write a Legal Resume and Build Your Brand.
In this blog post, I go in-depth about the difference between law firm attorneys and corporate counsels, why consulting with a legal resume writer can benefit you in understanding your brand, how to broaden your network of legal contacts, and why you should not rely on job search boards. There is so much value out there today to be made in personalized relationships.
Check out these these published articles I have also written in the HuffPost about the practice of law and making a career transition in and outside of law:
Relaunching Your Legal Career at the Intersection of Business and Entrepreneurship
How I Used My Law Degree to Get Out of Law