As a civil litigation attorney, you handle disputes of all kinds that fall into the civil category. You represent clients, draft their claims and motions, and determine which strategies that will benefit clients the most during each stage of their case.
But you might still have some questions about your resume. How long should it be, what skills should you include, and how should it look?
We can answer these questions and more, so don’t worry! Take a look at these three resume samples and time-tested advice so that you can hit the ground running.
Related resume examples
What Matters Most: Your Skills & Work History
It’s time to show recruiters that you’re equipped with everything it takes to win–both in and outside the courtroom. You might handle cases in a variety of areas, but most civil litigation attorneys specialize in a particular area or two.
If you specialize in medical malpractice, divorce, personal injury, or real estate disputes, use your skills to reflect that. Be specific about your skills: Don’t say something generic like “communication” when you could say something more unique and tailored to what you do.
You’ll want to be very specific about your technical abilities, too. Check out these examples of skills that hone in on qualities you might want to reflect in your own resume:
9 Most Popular Civil Litigation Attorney Skills
- Travel Law
- Client Management
- Conflict Resolution
- Negotiation
- Tort Law
- MS Word
- MS PowerPoint
- Google Workspace
- Filevine
Sample Civil Litigation Attorney Work Experience Bullet Points
Your skills are extremely important, but you’ll need to show recruiters how you put them into practice to really leave a lasting impression. They don’t have long to spend looking at your resume, so think of your absolute best experience examples and include those.
What makes an experience point great? Well, recruiters want to see what you did and how you did it. And, most of all, they want to see that you’ve done a great job at achieving successful results.
So, how do you make your examples stand out and look even more impressive? Metrics! When you measure your impact with quantifiable data, you sound much more credible and provide a more accurate picture of your qualifications.
Here are a few examples:
- Implemented creative strategies for collecting $53M in deficiency judgments on behalf of clients
- Oversaw civil litigation practices with 147+ cases including premises liability, employment law, and breach of contract valued at $72M
- Negotiated 253 personal injury settlements with insurance adjusters directly, saving $314M for clients
- Managed 186 foreclosure files, exceeding billing goals by 7%
- Consulted on 23 cases involving breach of contract and personal injury worth over $461M
Top 5 Tips For Your Civil Litigation Attorney Resume
- Stick with one page
- No matter how many fascinating cases you’ve solved or conflicts you’ve smoothed over, you still need to keep your resume to one page or less. Many recruiters won’t even get to a two-page resume!
- Show your specialization
- Again: Civil litigation attorneys can cover a broad variety of practices, so make sure you demonstrate your niche. Where do your specializations fall–landlord/tenant disputes? Product liability? Construction liability and code compliance?
- Readability is top priority
- Check any fonts or (minimal!) color usage on your resume to make sure everything’s extremely easy to read. Recruiters need to be able to skim your resume quickly, and you want to come across as professional and polished.
- Leverage your cover letter
- Your cover letter is the ideal place for you to give some more detailed examples and background for your qualifications, and you don’t want to repeat any resume points . . . So if you’re struggling to stay under one page, save extra achievements for the cover letter!
- Vary your context
- Context is a great way to add some variety to your resume’s experience section. Give just a small bit of background for why you achieved what you did, and each improvement percentage and dollar saved will look way nicer.
Customizing your resume for each job application is a great way to catch a recruiter’s eye. If you revisit the job description and reflect key phrases, vision statements, or buzzwords in your resume, you’ll be way more memorable.
That depends on your individual qualifications. If your skills, education, and potential certification sections are full enough to warrant their own column, let them have it! Just make sure your experience gets some limelight, too.
A great metric provides a measurement of your end results and how they left a positive impact. That could be the number of cases you resolved within an impressive time frame, savings in dollar amounts, or success rate percentages.
