Ten-Percent Guide to Writing a Legal CV for lawyers and law students

Sample Chapters from the Complete Guide to Writing a Legal CV and the Complete Interview Guide for Lawyers.

This book is the complete guide to everything you will ever need to know about writing a CV. It covers all aspects of CV writing, from what paper to use, which font to type in, what sections the CV needs, what you need to leave in and out, particular problems (for example low A level grades, 2.2 degrees, international qualifications, no work experience, retakes, age, marital status), and common questions asked. Nothing is left out from the guide which includes a sample CV. The author is a Solicitor and Director of ten-percent.co.uk limited who personally prepares and advises on CVs for law students, paralegals, trainee, newly qualified and senior solicitors and barristers across the UK, Europe and the Commonwealth.

1. Introduction

2. Background

3. Format of the CV.

4. Personal details.

5. Education.

6. Personal statements.

7. Employment.

8. Computer and language skills.

9. Positions of responsibility.

10. Achievements and awards.

10a. Politics and schools on CVs.

11. Activities and interests.

12. References.

13. Covering letters.

14. Paper, font and other trivia.

15. Conclusion.

So what is all the fuss about CVs for? Surely all an employer needs to see is whether you have a law degree, how to contact you and who your references are?

This approach to the CV is certainly one that as a recruiter I come across time and time again, and not just from trainee solicitor applicants and paralegals. Senior solicitors with 20 years experience hand over pieces of A4 paper with their name, address, university and identity of firm they are working for.

Whilst this is not good practice and will almost certainly deter potential employers from looking too closely at them (or even potential partners at that level), for potential trainee solicitors it is potentially catastrophic as potential employers will not look past the awful CV at their potential.

The potential appears in the above paragraph six times, and leads on to my next point. A great CV covering all the necessary issues and information can be dramatically let down by one spelling mistake, or bad grammar.

Before writing a CV you have to consider the reason for doing so. Why do employers in any job ask for one? What are they looking for? How much time do you need to spend on preparing a CV and what equipment/materials do you need? What sections does your CV have to have, and what information needs to be explained in detail? What layout should be used, and what titles included? Finally how should the CV be printed out, what paper and envelopes should be used?

The aim of this guide is to explain exactly that and help you stand out from the crowd.

Please note however: The CV guide should be used to do exactly that - it is a guide to help you prepare a CV in your own style and from your own hand.

1. Introduction

2. A Story

3. Preparing for Interviews

4. Application Forms

5. Research

6. Dress

7. Equipment

8. Travel

9. Summary

10. The Interview

11. Successful Interviews – Hints and Tips

12. After the Interview

13. What can I do now to assist my Application?

14. 100 Interview Questions

Welcome to what I hope is going to be a very useful and practical guide for solicitors, barristers, budding trainee solicitors, law graduates, paralegals and those thinking of entering the legal profession and about to start applying for training contracts and other such similar roles within the next 3 or 4 years.

The aim of the book is to give you an idea as to how interviews are conducted in different types of law firms in the UK (especially England and Wales) and to equip you to deal with some of the problems and pitfalls that may arise when you attend for and prior to interview.

I write this book with a huge amount of experience of both being interviewed and interviewing. After I finished my law degree I began to apply (in the mid 1990s) to law firms for training contracts, vacation placements and paralegal positions, attending at numerous firms of all sizes from very large city firms to sole practitioners on the high street. After a while I began to realise that a lot of the techniques and the approaches that you need to master to survive job interviews are very similar, regardless of what type of interview you are going for. This is especially the case in solicitors firms.

You can only be asked so many times “so why do you want to be a solicitor?” before your brain automatically switches into gear and spews out a standard response that you have formulated after attending numerous interviews.

After successfully obtaining a training contract I subsequently qualified as a solicitor being interviewed at the end of my training contract by numerous firms to take up an assistant solicitor post. Being an assistant solicitor and applying for jobs is extremely different to applying for trainee solicitor positions. First of all for most fields of law it is a buyer’s market and not a seller’s market. This means that you are in demand. Training contract applications however are the opposite. It is always a seller’s market and there are thousands of people out there looking for training contracts and you will be up against them every step of the way.

After a spell as an assistant solicitor I subsequently moved into legal recruitment and have conducted interviews on behalf of firms across the UK and overseas with partners, solicitors, trainee solicitors, paralegals and law graduates for a range of different types of jobs.

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment also operates an interview practice service and as part of my role in this I have had numerous experiences of interviewing potential trainee solicitors and paralegals who have thought that perhaps their technique needs to be improved. As a result I consider myself to be in a good position to write this book.

I am a qualified solicitor, recruitment consultant, career coach and Managing Director of Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited.

I hope this book is of great assistance and we also hope that you take the time to visit www.ten-percent.co.uk in the near future as there is plenty of free guidance on interview techniques on our web site, which is where you may have purchased this book from.

Good luck in your legal career if you are just starting out in law. It is rewarding and you can be very successful. However in order to get that elusive training contract you have to persevere and in some cases this can take a long, long time.

Please note: The interview guide should be used to do exactly that. It is a guide to help you prepare for interviews in your own style and manner.

Neither the author or ten-percent.co.uk ltd or its publishers take responsibility for any dependence or reliance placed upon the use of the advice and cannot accept liability for any loss or damage incurred as a result.

Secondly, please note that all references to the male gender should be applied also to the female gender. It is just we are too lazy to write both in all the time.

© Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited - March 2000 to 2006 all rights reserved. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment (www.ten-percent.co.uk) acts as an Employment Agency in the introduction of candidates to its clients for legal jobs. Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited recognises that it is essential to provide equal opportunities to all persons without discrimination. We encourage our employees at all levels to act fairly and prevent discrimination on the grounds of sex, age, race, sexual orientation, religion, marital status or disability.