What to Put on a Law School Application Resumé

Recently one of my readers emailed me asking about what to put in her resumé and I realized that I haven't talked much about the application process so I figured I'd share what I put on my resumé when I was first applying and then applying to transfer. Application resumés can be hard because they're a little different than a job resumé and I know from experience that if you Google law school resumé all they have as examples is someone who was super involved in undergrad and when they got their masters and oh yeah they have like 10 years of experience working in the legal field. This is a little more realistic post.

From Undergrad to Law School

So here's everything what mine had:

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Just like everything you put on a job resumé

Education 
My school name and location, graduation date, degree, minors, and GPA

Honors and Scholarships  
Scholarship I was awarded because of my ACT score and the GPA I maintained to keep that, and that one time I made the deans list (with dates)

Leadership experience 
I tried really hard to make being in a sorority and pre-law fraternity sound like I was really involved when really I just chose what flowers we'd use one day during recruitment (dates again)

Extracurricular activities 
This is where I put those organizations that you get in to based on your GPA but only meet like once ever and that I was a part of my school's pre law program too (dates)

International experience 
Where I studied abroad and where I worked during my internship for one of my classes. a friend of mine hard participated in our school's DC internship at the Capitol so she put that here and I just kinda copied that section of hers :)

Volunteer experience 
Basically just all of the philanthropy participation I had to do because of my sorority and fraternity

If I had any legal experience like working at a law office or shadowing a judge, I definitely would've added that in here and put it towards the top because it is the second most relevant part after my education. If you have it, good for you. If you don't, just know that it's not going to ruin your chances. You also might consider having career services take a glance at your resumé before you submit it to get any tips on how to improve your wording.

On this note I'd like to add that a lot of people tend to get super involved their junior/senior year once they decide they want to go to law school so they try to make their resumé sound great. My word of caution is don't get too involved and sacrifice your grades for it. Grades & LSAT > rec letters > resumé  Just to put things in perspective. Also it looks better to be really involved in a few things than barely involved in a ton of things. 

Related: 0L Advice

If you're interested in seeing what other law students did for their resumé, then check out

Telling Twenty's Application Process: Step-by-step and

Justifiably Blonde's What In the Heck Am I Going to Write About

From Law School to Law School

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Shocker 

Education 

Law school name and location with GPA and class rank first, undergrad second just like what was in ^that^ one

Extracurricular activities 

The scholarship I got and the information similar to ^^, my participation in my 1L moot court, and that I volunteered for this event that my professor held

Organizations and memberships 

The two organizations I joined my 1L year

Legal experience 

My summer internships. I put the information just like I have on my job resumé too about my job requirements. 

Related: How to Get a Summer Internship in the Legal Field 

Language skills

I got a degree in Spanish so yeah everyone is going to know that

If I had been on the ball my 1L year and did pro bono service, I definitely would've listed that on here. I feel like that looks a lot better to a school but again, if you have it great, if you don't obviously it won't ruin your chances.  

Related: 6 Steps to Transferring Law Schools