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Recs, Resumes, and Essays

Resumes

Do I need a Resume?

Some applicants to law school are currently full-time students who have worked only one or two summer jobs, have not worked during the school year, and have participated in one or two extracurricular activities with no positions of leadership. They have received no major awards for academics, athletic or other skills. These people do not need a resume unless the law school to which they are applying requires one.  Everyone else can and should send a resume to every law school, whether or not it requests one.

However, a significant minority of law schools DO require a resume.  So even if you feel you don't need one to present yourself, you DO need one in order to follow the rules.  

Can I use my work resume?

No. A law school resume is not a job resume. It should be only one page, and should include schools, honors and extracurricular activities, both paid and volunteer work experiences. The number of hours you worked during the school year should be included if it is more than fifteen hours per week. Class rank could be included if it's higher than average for the schools for which you're applying.

I Need More than One Page!

I know you think so, but you'd be amazed at how often I disagree.  Your resume is not a CV.  Law schools don't care about the things an employer needs to know.  You can do things like this:

• Ten articles published in various science journals, 1994-1999; three completed works to be submitted, and three works in progress.
• Co-founded and developed 7 companies with total revenues in excess of $200 million; conceived and implemented 8 major business joint ventures with Fortune 500 companies
• Other full and part-time work during undergraduate years.

A good rule is to remember that the person reading this resume is not going to offer you a job.  The level of detail needed is only slightly more than you would use at a cocktail party.

Having said all that, I should admit that for people with more than a half-dozen jobs and awards and extracurricular activities, I have permitted resumes of two or even three pages.

Aren't these questions on the application?

Most of this information may already be requested on the application, but your answers there are not necessarily identical to the information on the resume. Your resume can highlight elements not requested on every application, but which may be important to many schools. For instance, an athlete might include trophies or rankings on a resume. "Member, U.S. Olympic Fencing Team" might make the difference between acceptance and rejection.

Just as you want to highlight experiences consistent with your goals and interests, you can also abbreviate less relevant experiences. Several unglamorous jobs that paid the rent can be summarized in a line or two: "Summer jobs included lifeguard, waiter, delivery person."

A law school resume is another opportunity to unify the components of your file. If you worked for gay and lesbian civil rights and had an internship with a legislator, you might highlight in your description skills developed during the internship which helped your later work. Course work in marine biology might be mentioned to support your desire to work as an environmentalist. This is a great opportunity to control the image that you project, instead of being controlled by the law school's application; take every advantage of it.

"But What Should it Look Like?"

Apparently, resume production is a bigger, uh, production, than I thought.  Having filled over a hundred requests for a sample resume this year, I've decided to add a section on resume format.  Click here to learn more.