Once you have a few years of experience, the CV rules you learned as a student stop fully applying, and many lawyers do not update their approach. They keep leading with education, keep listing every internship from years ago, and keep underselling the thing that now matters most: the real work they have done and the value they have delivered. If you are a working lawyer looking to move, your CV needs to grow up with you. Let me show you how an experienced lawyer’s CV should actually look.
Quick answer
An experienced lawyer’s CV leads with your professional experience and expertise, not your education. It emphasises the substance of your work (the matters, deals or cases you have handled, your areas of expertise, and your impact), shows progression, and cuts the student-era clutter like old internships, school marks and moots. Keep it clean and, ideally, to one or two pages depending on experience. The message a recruiter or partner should get quickly is: here is what this person can do, at what level, and in what areas.
What changes as you gain experience
The centre of gravity shifts. As a student or fresher, your internships and potential were the story. As an experienced lawyer, your track record is the story: the real work you have done, the expertise you have built, and the level you operate at. So your CV should now foreground your professional roles and what you achieved in them, treat education as a brief supporting detail, and quietly drop the student-era material that no longer adds anything. Recruiters at this stage are assessing capability and fit for a specific level, so make that easy to see.
What to emphasise
- Your professional roles, most recent first, with your responsibilities and, crucially, what you actually did and achieved.
- The substance of your work: the types of matters, deals or cases you have handled, and your areas of expertise. (A deal sheet or matter list, covered in separate guides, is often a strong companion.)
- Impact and level: where you can, show the significance of your work and the responsibility you carried, appropriately and within confidentiality limits.
- Progression: a sense that you have grown in responsibility and skill over your PQE.
What to cut from your student-era CV
Be willing to let go of what no longer serves you. As an experienced lawyer, you can usually drop: old college internships (unless genuinely notable), school-level marks, most moots and student positions, and long lists of student activities. These made sense when you had little else, but now they clutter the picture and can even make you look junior. Keep what demonstrates real, relevant expertise; trim the rest. A focused CV signals seniority.
YLCC ACTION STEP: Look at your CV and ask, of every entry: does this show what I can do at my current level, or is it leftover from being a student? Move your professional experience and expertise to the top, describe the substance of your work clearly, and cut the student-era clutter. Your CV should read like an experienced lawyer wrote it, not a graduate.
PLEASE DON’T DO THIS: Please don’t keep leading with your education and old internships years into your career; it undersells you and reads as junior. And please don’t be vague about your actual work (“handled various matters”); within confidentiality, be as specific as you can about the substance and level, because that is exactly what a recruiter is trying to assess.
A note on confidentiality
Experienced lawyers rightly worry about how to describe confidential work. The answer is to convey the nature, type and level of your work without disclosing confidential specifics: describe the kind of matter, the issues involved, and your role, rather than naming clients or revealing sensitive details. The deal sheet and matter list guides show how to do this well. You can be specific and useful about your experience while staying entirely professional about confidentiality.
FAQs
- How is an experienced lawyer CV different? It leads with your professional experience and expertise rather than education, emphasises the substance and level of your work, and cuts student-era clutter like old internships and school marks.
- Should an experienced lawyer CV be one page? One or two pages is reasonable depending on experience. Keep it focused; length should reflect substance, not padding.
- What should I cut as I gain experience? Old college internships (unless notable), school marks, most moots and student positions, and long activity lists. Keep what shows real, relevant expertise.
- How do I describe confidential work? Convey the type, nature and level of the work and your role, without naming clients or disclosing sensitive specifics. See the deal-sheet and matter-list guides.
- What do recruiters look for in an experienced lawyer’s CV? Capability, expertise and level for a specific role: what you can do, in what areas, at what level of responsibility. Make that easy to see.
Thank you for reading!
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