May 2004

How to Read the Modern Law Student's Résumé

by Erika Lim

Brace yourselves. In the coming weeks you'll be receiving dozens of résumés, first from law students and then from new grads, after the bar exam ends in late July.

Just what do all those awards and honors signify, and how can you assess the qualifications of candidates from out-of-area or unfamiliar law schools?

Most of us remember the policies and programs of our own law schools, but may not realize the range of differences among the policies and programs of the 188 ABA-accredited law schools. Also, if you, like me, graduated from law school more than a few years ago, you've probably noticed résumé items that weren't around when you assembled your law school résumé. This article will demystify modern law student résumés.

The annual National Association for Law Placement (NALP) Directory of Law Schools is probably the best one-stop resource available to help employers learn about the characteristics and curricula of law schools and also understand a candidate's credentials — for example, to learn a school's grading policy and curve, to understand what various honors mean and how certain scholarships are awarded, or to find out the selection criteria for law review and/or law journal. This directory includes all ABA-accredited law schools, some that are not yet accredited, and some in Canada. The bad news is that this resource is available only in hard copy, so you will either need to invest in a copy or ask a candidate's law school to fax a copy of its listing.

And this leads to my second-ranked resource: the law schools themselves. Employers can hop onto the Internet and check out a candidate's law school's website, or can drop an e-mail or make a quick phone call to someone at the law school — the career services office is always a good first contact. I'm sure I speak for many of my colleagues when I say that I have found that career services offices are more than happy to answer questions and provide information about schools, curricula, administrative policies, and students.

I'd also like to offer a little insight into some of items that are regularly included in law students' résumés:

Academic qualifications. Each school has its own grading policy and grading curve, so "GPA" can be misleading (especially since some schools don't grade on a 4.0 or A/B/C/D/F scale). A more meaningful measure is how that candidate's academic achievements compare to his or her colleagues' achievements — in other words, rank. Some schools issue actual numbers, and others rank students by percentage (e.g., top quartile, top 33 percent). If a school doesn't rank its students, check out its grading policy in the NALP directory, on its website, or by calling the school.

Graduating honors can be similarly confusing. For example, 77 law schools have a chapter of the Order of the Coif and the other 100-something don't. The Order of the Coif is a national honors society for law school graduates; membership is conferred on the top 10 percent of each graduating class at member schools. If a candidate lists membership in the Order of the Coif, an employer can be assured of that person's academic achievement, but the same assurance can be had by examining a candidate's graduating rank.

Criteria for other graduating honors can also be found in the NALP directory, on a school's website, or by calling the school.

Information on school-specific scholarships, awards, and prizes, as well as information on selection criteria for law review and/or law journal, can be found in the NALP directory (see, I told you that this is the best one-stop resource for employers). One often-cited honor that's awarded at most law schools is a CALI Award (AKA CALI Excellence for the Future Award, formerly known as AmJur Award), which is given to the student who received the highest grade in each course.

Moot court. Moot court is required by some schools and voluntary at others. Also, membership on the Moot Court Board comes about in various ways — at some schools, it's earned through performance or participation in competitions, and at others, it's through an open application process.

Experiential learning. This is where huge changes have been made in law school curricula over the past decade or so — almost all law schools have expanded beyond doctrinal classroom teaching and now offer a wide array of clinics, advocacy classes, and internships/externships. Candidates who have participated in one or more of these "out of the classroom" courses bring practical experience and skills that can be especially valuable to employers that don't have structured training programs. Most law schools offer several clinical programs, each topic-based, in which student-attorneys take full-case responsibility for real clients with real legal problems that are unrolling in real time.

Students are very closely supervised — the faculty:student ratio in clinics is much lower than in doctrinal classes — and are taught (i.e., don't just pick up on their own) nuts and bolts; beginning-to-end case-management and trial skills, including interviewing and effectively communicating with clients; ethics; records-keeping; drafting pleadings; and negotiation. In some clinics, students represent their clients, in court or in administrative hearings. Added bonus: clinic clients are almost always low income, so students also learn that law is a form of community service.

In advocacy classes, students learn pre-trial and trial skills (taking and defending depositions, constructing and delivering opening statements and closing arguments, examining witnesses) without having real clients. The difference between the skills and experience gained in these simulation classes and those learned in mock-trial competitions is that the classes are taught by practicing litigators and so are more likely to impart correct techniques and good habits.

Internship/externship programs vary from school to school and have different names, but the general goal of these programs is to get students into supervised field positions, frequently with judges, government agencies, or public-interest organizations, to see firsthand how classroom learning is transformed into the profession of lawyering. Some schools require internships or externships, while at others, they're elective; also, some programs include a classroom or seminar component that requires students to reflect on what they're seeing and doing.

Computer skills. All law schools offer training in both Lexis and Westlaw, and both companies offer unlimited usage to law students, to encourage them to wander about and see what the respective applications offer. From an employer's perspective, what's key is that a candidate knows how to use these resources in a time-effective manner — unlimited (and free) student access may be used only for educational purposes.

A few last words. Law schools offer so much more than they did just a few years ago, and as a result, they're turning out young lawyers whose skill sets and educational foundations may be different from those presented by the last pool of candidates considered by you or your firm. For employers who don't hire on a regular basis, asking a few questions or doing a little research on current credentials and qualifications could lead to terrific candidates who might otherwise be overlooked.

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Erika Lim is a 1992 graduate of Seattle University School of Law. She clerked for the Washington Court of Appeals, served as committee counsel to the state Senate, and worked as senior policy advisor and legislative liaison for two state cabinet agencies.

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