Legal CVs are assessed on three axes: qualification and admission status, practice area, and the type and value of matters you have run. Everything else is supporting detail. A reviewer who cannot establish those three things in the first fifteen seconds will move to the next application.
Admission status must be stated with complete precision. Whether you are admitted, in which jurisdiction, from what date, and under what roll or bar number if applicable, is a matter of professional record. Implying admission you do not hold is a regulatory problem, not just a CV problem, and this guide will not help you do it.
Beyond that, the differentiator is matter detail: what you drafted yourself, what you negotiated, what you appeared on, and what supervision you were under. "Assisted on corporate transactions" tells a reviewer nothing about your actual capability. "Drafted first-draft share purchase agreements on eight transactions between £2m and £15m" tells them exactly where you are.
This example is written for a corporate and commercial associate roughly three years post-qualification in England and Wales.
Opens in the editor with this content already filled in, so you can replace it with your own.
Oliver Bennett
Corporate & Commercial Solicitor · 3 Years PQE
oliver.bennett@example.co.uk+44 7700 900906Bristol, United Kingdomlinkedin.com/in/example-oliver-bennett
Profile
Corporate and commercial solicitor with three years PQE, admitted in England and Wales in 2022. Practice covers private company acquisitions between £2m and £15m, commercial contract drafting and corporate governance. Draft first-draft transaction documents, run due diligence with paralegal support, and handle three to five commercial contracts a month from instruction to signature.
Admission & Qualifications
Admitted as a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales
Solicitors Regulation AuthoritySeptember 2022
Legal Practice Course (LPC) with Distinction
University of LawJuly 2020
Practice Areas & Skills
Practice AreasCorporate M&A, Share and asset purchases, Commercial contracts, Corporate governance, Shareholder agreements
DraftingShare purchase agreements, Disclosure letters, Service agreements, Board minutes and resolutions, Heads of terms
Transaction SkillsLegal due diligence, Data room management, Completion mechanics, Warranty negotiation, Post-completion filings
SystemsPractical Law, Westlaw, LexisNexis, Companies House filing
Professional Experience
Associate, Corporate & Commercial
Ashcombe Hale LLP · Bristol, United KingdomSeptember 2022 – Present
•Drafted first-draft share purchase agreements and disclosure letters on eight private company acquisitions with values between £2m and £15m, running the disclosure exercise directly with the client on five.
•Ran legal due diligence on three acquisitions, supervising two paralegals and producing the red flag report; on one matter the employment findings supported a £340k reduction in the headline price.
•Draft and negotiate standard-form supply and services agreements for clients in manufacturing and logistics, typically three to five contracts a month from instruction to signature.
•Prepared the advisory note on change of control provisions in a target’s key supply contracts, which identified a consent requirement resolved by side letter before exchange.
•Maintain the firm’s commercial contract precedent bank and updated eight templates following changes to consumer and data protection guidance.
•Supervise one trainee on corporate seats, including reviewing board minutes and Companies House filings before submission.
Trainee Solicitor
Ashcombe Hale LLP · Bristol, United KingdomSeptember 2020 – August 2022
•Completed four seats: corporate, commercial property, dispute resolution and employment.
•Prepared bundles and chronologies on two contested commercial disputes, and attended a two-day trial as part of the instructing team.
•Handled 20 residential and commercial lease matters end to end under supervision during the property seat.
Education
LLB (Hons) Law
University of Bristol · Bristol, United KingdomSeptember 2016 – June 2019
•Dissertation on directors’ duties in distressed company sales.
First Class Honours
Professional Memberships
The Law Society of England and Wales
MemberSeptember 2022 – Present
Languages
EnglishNative
FrenchB2
Lawyer / Legal Associate example on the Legal Classic layout. All details are fictional and shown for demonstration only.
What recruiters expect
Before writing anything, it helps to know what the person reading is checking for. In this field that is usually a short, specific list:
Admission status and jurisdiction, stated exactly, plus post-qualification experience in years.
Practice area, with the sub-areas you have genuine exposure to.
Matter types and value bands, described without identifying clients.
Drafting experience specifically: which documents you produce as first draft and which you review.
Supervision level - what you run yourself and what a partner signs.
Recommended CV structure
This is the running order the example uses. It is a starting point rather than a rule, but the order reflects what tends to be read first in this profession.
Profile — Three or four lines positioning you for the role.
Admission & Qualifications — Completed certifications with the issuing body.
Practice Areas & Skills — Grouped skills, for example "Languages" and "Tooling".
Professional Experience — Paid roles, in reverse chronological order.
Education — Degrees, diplomas and school-leaving qualifications.
Professional Memberships — Bodies you belong to, with membership numbers where relevant.
Languages — Spoken languages with CEFR levels.
Sections worth adding
Publications — Client briefings and practitioner articles are valued, particularly for specialist roles.
Pro Bono — Pro bono and law centre work is genuinely relevant experience and is looked upon well.
Continuing Competence — Use for SRA continuing competence records or specialist accreditation courses.
Skills worth including
Grouped rather than listed in one block. Grouping makes a long list readable and shows that you can tell the difference between the things you use daily and the things you have touched.
Share purchase agreements · Disclosure letters · Service agreements · Terms and conditions · Board minutes and resolutions · Heads of terms
Transaction Skills
Legal due diligence · Data room management · Completion mechanics · Warranty and indemnity negotiation · Post-completion filings
Research & Analysis
Legal research · Case analysis · Statutory interpretation · Precedent development · Client advisory notes
Systems
Practical Law · Westlaw · LexisNexis · Companies House filing · Document management systems
Beyond the technical list: Client communication under time pressure, Negotiating with opposing counsel, Supervising trainees, Managing a matter budget, Explaining risk in commercial terms. These belong inside your experience bullets, demonstrated, rather than in a list of adjectives.
Example professional summary
Three or four lines, positioned for the role rather than describing your personality. Two versions you can adapt:
Corporate and commercial solicitor with three years PQE, admitted in England and Wales in 2022. Practice covers private company acquisitions between £2m and £15m, commercial contract drafting and corporate governance. Draft first-draft transaction documents, run due diligence with paralegal support, and handle three to five commercial contracts a month from instruction to signature.
Commercial solicitor with two years PQE in a regional practice, handling supply agreements, terms of business and shareholder arrangements for owner-managed businesses. Working towards a specialism in technology contracts.
Writing your experience
The difference between a CV that gets a call and one that does not is almost always in the bullet points. Each pair below shows a real rewrite of the kind of line that appears on most CVs in this field.
Weak
Assisted on corporate transactions.
Stronger
Drafted first-draft share purchase agreements and disclosure letters on eight private company acquisitions with values between £2m and £15m, running the disclosure exercise directly with the client on five.
Names the documents, the number of matters, the value band and the part you personally owned.
Weak
Carried out legal research.
Stronger
Prepared the advisory note on the application of the change of control provisions in a target’s key supply contracts, which identified a consent requirement that was resolved by side letter before exchange.
A research task with a transactional consequence, which is what research is actually for.
Weak
Managed due diligence.
Stronger
Ran legal due diligence on three acquisitions, supervising two paralegals and producing the red flag report; on one matter the employment findings supported a £340k reduction in the headline price.
Shows supervision, deliverable and commercial impact without identifying the parties.
Weak
Drafted commercial agreements.
Stronger
Draft and negotiate the firm’s standard-form supply and services agreements for clients in manufacturing and logistics, typically handling three to five contracts a month from instruction to signature.
Establishes volume and end-to-end ownership, which is how commercial capability is judged.
Taken from the example
The sample CV for this profession is fully written. A few sections from it, so you can see the level of specificity that works:
Experience
Associate, Corporate & Commercial, Ashcombe Hale LLP
Drafted first-draft share purchase agreements and disclosure letters on eight private company acquisitions with values between £2m and £15m, running the disclosure exercise directly with the client on five.
Ran legal due diligence on three acquisitions, supervising two paralegals and producing the red flag report; on one matter the employment findings supported a £340k reduction in the headline price.
Draft and negotiate standard-form supply and services agreements for clients in manufacturing and logistics, typically three to five contracts a month from instruction to signature.
Prepared the advisory note on change of control provisions in a target’s key supply contracts, which identified a consent requirement resolved by side letter before exchange.
Education
LLB (Hons) Law, University of Bristol — First Class Honours
Certifications and registration
Admitted as a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales — Solicitors Regulation Authority
Legal Practice Course (LPC) with Distinction — University of Law
Common mistakes
Ambiguous admission status
Write exactly what is true: admitted and the date, or a trainee, paralegal, or qualified in another jurisdiction and seeking requalification. Anything less precise reads as an attempt to blur the line, and it is a regulatory matter.
Naming clients
Client confidentiality and privilege apply to your CV as much as anywhere else. Describe the sector and the deal size, never the party.
"Assisted with" everything
A CV where every matter is assisted on gives a reviewer no way to assess your level. Separate what you drafted, ran and negotiated from what you supported.
Practice area drift
Listing six unrelated practice areas suggests a general caseload rather than a specialism, which weakens applications to specialist teams.
Claiming rights of audience or accreditation you do not hold
Higher rights, specialist panel membership and accreditations are all verifiable. Never imply them.
ATS considerations
Applicant tracking systems behave differently by sector, and generic advice is often wrong for a given field. These points are specific to lawyer / legal associate applications:
State post-qualification experience in the standard form: "3 years PQE". It is the primary filter in legal recruitment.
Spell out "mergers and acquisitions (M&A)" once so both forms match.
Name the jurisdiction explicitly - "admitted in England and Wales" - because legal recruitment is jurisdiction-bound.
Include the research platforms by name; they appear in a surprising number of adverts.
The Minimal ATS layout is built for this, and the ATS guide covers what parsers do to a file in more detail.
Questions about lawyer / legal associate CVs
How should I state my qualification if I am not yet admitted?
State it accurately and without hedging: "Trainee solicitor, qualification expected September 2026", "Paralegal, LPC completed 2023" or "Qualified in Pakistan, seeking requalification in England and Wales". Reviewers place candidates at every one of these stages routinely.
How do I describe matters without breaching confidentiality?
Use the sector, the transaction type and a value band. "A £6m acquisition of a specialist engineering business" is descriptive and identifies nobody. Never use client names, even where the deal was reported.
What does PQE mean and does it have to be exact?
Post-qualification experience, counted from your admission date. It should be exact, because it is checkable and it is the main criterion firms recruit against.
Should I include my degree classification and A-levels?
Degree classification, yes - many firms still screen on it. School qualifications become optional after two or three years in practice, though some City firms continue to ask.
How long should a legal CV be?
Two pages in private practice. In-house roles often accept a tighter one to two pages. Academic and judicial applications are the exception and run longer.