Law student CV: precise, evidence-led and ready for vacation schemes

Where a CV fits in legal recruitment

Law is one of the most structured graduate markets in the UK, and the way you apply depends heavily on the kind of employer. Large commercial firms run annual recruitment for vacation schemes and training contracts, usually through their own online application forms. Regional, high-street and smaller firms, in-house legal teams, legal charities and the public sector often recruit differently: some ask for a CV and cover letter, some use a short form, and many hire paralegals and legal assistants in the same way as any other employer.

So even if your first target is a vacation scheme at a commercial firm, you need a strong legal CV. It is the document you send when a firm asks for one, the source you draw on when you fill in forms, the basis of your LinkedIn profile and what you hand over at law fairs and networking events. It also has to meet a standard that law firms take more seriously than most employers: precision. A typo, an inconsistent date or a heading in a different font is not a small thing when the job involves checking documents for a living.

This guide covers legal recruitment in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own legal systems and their own routes to qualifying, so check the relevant professional body if you plan to practise there.

The routes in: vacation schemes, training contracts and the SQE

It helps to understand the vocabulary, because firms use it in their adverts and you should use it accurately on your CV and in your applications.

Vacation schemes are short, structured work placements at a law firm, usually lasting one to a few weeks and often run in the winter, spring or summer. You sit with a team, work on real tasks under supervision, attend talks and are assessed informally throughout. Many commercial firms treat their vacation schemes as a main route into their trainee intake, and some interview vacation scheme students for training contracts at the end. Law students usually apply in their penultimate year; non-law students often apply in their final year or after graduating. Many firms also run shorter insight days or open days aimed at first-year students.

Training contracts are the traditional two-year period of training at a firm before qualifying as a solicitor, usually with rotations through several departments, known as seats. Many firms still use the term, and their trainee programmes are now generally structured so that the time counts towards the work experience required for qualification. Larger firms often recruit trainees well in advance of the start date, and some sponsor their future trainees through the required exams and preparation courses.

The Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) is now the central route to qualifying as a solicitor in England and Wales. In broad terms, you need a degree in any subject or an equivalent qualification, to pass the two stages of the SQE (SQE1, which tests legal knowledge, and SQE2, which tests practical legal skills), to complete two years of qualifying work experience and to meet the regulator's character and suitability requirements. Qualifying work experience can be gained in a training contract or in other legal roles, including paralegal work, and in some cases across more than one organisation. Some people who began their legal studies under the older Legal Practice Course route can still qualify that way. The Solicitors Regulation Authority publishes the current rules, and it is worth reading them directly rather than relying on summaries.

Barristers follow a separate path: an academic stage (a law degree, or a non-law degree plus a conversion course), a vocational Bar course, then pupillage, a period of supervised training in a set of chambers or another approved organisation. Many pupillages are advertised through a central online portal. Applicants for the Bar often list mini-pupillages, which are short periods of work shadowing at chambers, along with mooting and debating. Most of the advice below applies to Bar applicants too, though their CVs tend to emphasise advocacy and written argument even more.

On your CV, describe your status precisely: "Second-year LLB student", "Completed vacation scheme, Summer 2025", "Non-law graduate, starting a law conversion course in September 2026". Avoid suggesting you have qualified, passed or been offered something before you have.

When firms use application forms, and why the CV still matters

Many commercial law firms do not ask for a CV at all for vacation schemes and training contracts. Instead you complete their online form: education with full grades, often including individual module marks, work experience, positions of responsibility, and long-answer questions on why you want to join that firm, a commercial issue and your strengths.

Your CV still does a lot of work in that process:

• It is your master record. Forms ask for exact dates, grades and job titles. Keeping these accurate in one CV means you can copy them consistently into every form and never contradict yourself across applications.
• Some firms do ask for one. Smaller and regional firms, some specialist practices and many in-house teams ask for a CV and cover letter, sometimes for their trainee roles as well as for paralegal jobs.
• Paralegal and legal assistant roles. These are a common way to gain experience before or alongside the SQE, and they are usually advertised like ordinary jobs, with a CV upload through an online system or a recruitment agency.
• LinkedIn and networking. Recruiters, trainees and lawyers you meet at law fairs and firm events may look you up. A LinkedIn profile that matches your CV, with the same experience described in the same way, supports everything else.

Where you upload a CV through an online system, use a plain one-column layout with standard headings so the text reads cleanly. Our ATS-friendly CV guide explains how. Keep it to two pages at most; for most law students one well-organised page is enough.

Structure and academic results

Legal employers look closely at academic performance, so your education section should be complete and easy to scan. A reliable order is: contact details, a short personal profile, education, legal experience, other work experience, positions of responsibility and activities, skills, and interests if they add something.

In education, give your degree title, university, dates and achieved or predicted classification. Law firms often want more detail than other employers, so add your first-year average or your strongest module marks, for example "Contract Law 72, Tort 68". If you are a non-law student, list the modules that show analysis, research or writing. Put your A-levels or equivalent on one line with subjects and grades, as many firms ask for them.

The personal profile should be short and specific. Name your year and degree, what you are applying for and two pieces of evidence:

Second-year LLB student (first-year average 67%) applying for summer vacation schemes in commercial law. Volunteer adviser at a university law clinic and quarter-finalist in the university mooting competition, with two years of part-time retail experience.

Do not open with "I have always been passionate about law". Your experience should show your interest; the long-answer questions on forms and your cover letter are where you explain your motivation.

Legal experience: law clinic, pro bono, mooting and competitions

Formal legal work experience is hard to get before a vacation scheme, and recruiters know it. What they want to see is that you have tested your interest in law in practical ways. University law clinics, pro bono projects, mooting, negotiation and client interviewing competitions, court or tribunal marshalling, and volunteering with an advice charity all count. Write them up like jobs, with a title, the organisation type, dates and specific bullets.

• Weak: "Volunteer at the law clinic."
• Strong: "Volunteer Adviser, university law clinic: interview members of the public about housing and employment problems and draft letters of advice under the supervision of a qualified solicitor."
• Weak: "Did mooting."
• Strong: "Reached the quarter-final of the university mooting competition, researching and presenting a ground of appeal on duty of care in negligence."
• Weak: "Work experience at a solicitors."
• Strong: "One-week work experience at a high-street firm: attended client meetings with a family law solicitor, prepared a chronology from case papers and drafted a file note."

Two rules matter here. First, protect confidentiality: never name clients or give details that could identify a case. Describe the type of matter instead. Second, be accurate about your role. If a solicitor reviewed and signed the advice, say you drafted it under supervision; overstating your responsibility in a field that values precision is a poor first impression.

If you have done a vacation scheme or a mini-pupillage, list the department or practice areas you sat in and the tasks you worked on, such as legal research, drafting, due diligence, or attending a hearing.

Non-legal work and commercial awareness

Commercial awareness comes up in almost every law firm's criteria. In plain terms, it means understanding that clients are businesses or people with commercial pressures, and that legal advice has to make sense for them, not just be technically correct. It also covers knowing how a law firm itself makes money and what is happening in the sectors its clients work in.

You cannot demonstrate commercial awareness by writing "commercially aware" or "I read the financial press every day". You show it through experience that involved money, customers, targets or decisions, and through what you noticed there. This is where part-time jobs earn their place on a law CV:

• Weak: "Sales assistant at a DIY store. Served customers."
• Strong: "Sales Assistant (part-time), DIY retailer: advise trade and retail customers on products, and suggested reorganising a seasonal display after noticing which lines sold out each weekend."
• Weak: "Treasurer of the Law Society."
• Strong: "Treasurer, university Law Society: manage the society's budget and sponsorship income from law firms, negotiating terms for two sponsored events."

Other good sources include negotiation competitions, commercial awareness competitions run by firms or societies, a student investment society, a business you have run yourself, or an internship outside law. In each case, a bullet that shows you understood the commercial side of the situation is worth more than a claim.

Non-law students and graduates

Plenty of solicitors and barristers did not study law at university, and many firms recruit non-law students and graduates for vacation schemes and training contracts. Under the SQE route, a law degree is not required to sit the exams, though most non-law graduates take a law conversion course or an SQE preparation course first; some firms fund this for their future trainees. For the Bar, non-law graduates complete a conversion course before the vocational stage.

On your CV, present your degree with confidence and pick out what transfers: research, written argument, analysis of evidence, languages, numbers or technical knowledge relevant to a firm's clients. Show that your interest in law is tested rather than new by including open days, law fairs, insight days, legal volunteering or a relevant essay or dissertation. If you have already accepted a place on a conversion course, add it to your education section with its start date. Our graduate CV guide has more on presenting your degree and competencies.

Before and after: a law student's CV

Owen Lloyd is a fictional second-year LLB student in Cardiff applying for summer vacation schemes and paralegal roles. His first CV opened with "I have always had a passion for law and justice", gave his degree without any grades, listed the law clinic as "Volunteer, law clinic" and described his part-time job at a DIY store as "Customer service". His mooting experience and his role as Law Society treasurer were in a single line under Interests, and two job dates used different formats.

The new version gives his first-year average and his strongest module marks, then a personal profile naming the schemes he is targeting. The law clinic became a full entry explaining that he interviews clients and drafts advice letters under supervision, with no case details. Mooting moved to its own line with the round he reached and the area of law. The treasurer role and his retail job now show budgets, sponsorship and customer decisions, which give him concrete material for commercial awareness questions. Every date follows the same format.

Nothing was invented, and nothing was exaggerated. Checked against a paralegal advert, his CV went from an indicative score of 46 to 84.

Check the detail, then tailor

Before you send a legal CV, check it the way a trainee would check a document: every date in the same format, every heading consistent, no spelling mistakes, the same facts as your application forms and your LinkedIn profile. Then run it through our free ATS CV checker with the advert pasted in, which reads your file in the browser and flags formatting problems and missing terms such as legal research, drafting or client care. Treat the score as a list of things to fix rather than a verdict.

If you want help turning your experience into a sharper CV, StudentCV can rewrite and tailor it to a specific vacation scheme, paralegal role or legal assistant job. Upload your current CV or LinkedIn profile, or type your details in, paste the advert, and edit the whole CV free before deciding whether to pay to download it as a PDF or Word file.