Legal advisor CV example

How to add contact details to your legal advisor CV

While it might sound obvious, you should always add up-to-date contact details at the top of your CV. Otherwise, hiring managers and recruiters won’t be able to invite you to the interview stage. Include:

• Full name
• Location
• Phone number
• Email address

Another top tip is to keep your email address work-appropriate – first impressions matter!

Example of contact section for a legal advisor CV

How to write a personal statement for your legal advisor CV

If you want to win over the employer, prioritise a punchy personal statement This three- or four-sentence introduction (or 50- to 100-word paragraph) summarises your years of experience, most desirable attributes, and proudest achievements. You could also mention your career goals – hiring managers love candidates who express an interest in climbing up the company ladder!

Our top advice for a winning personal statement includes:

• Write in the third person for a polished edge
• Use action verbs like “orchestrated” and “championed”
• Focus on positive adjectives such as “patient” and “organised”
• Remove the fluff and keep information to the point
• Double-check for spelling and grammatical mistakes

Above all else, pepper your text with plenty of hard evidence and be as specific as possible. Ultimately, you want to show the hiring manager how amazing you are rather than asking them to believe you.

Instead of saying you “renegotiated contract terms”, explain how you “renegotiated the contract terms for our primary contractor, saving the business approximately £200,000 per year”.

Example of personal statement for a legal advisor CV

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Tackling work experience on a CV for a legal advisor

Without a doubt, the most crucial part of a legal advisor CV is the employment history section. Candidates must have at least three years of experience in a law-related role – popular gateway positions include solicitor, barrister, and advocate. Hiring managers also check for loyalty and ambition by establishing how long a person typically stays at a company and whether they receive consistent promotions.

Most importantly, this is an excellent place for employers to assess your strengths. As well as discussing your day-to-day duties, highlight as many unique accomplishments, attributes, and awards as possible to win over the reader! The format is as follows:

• Job title
• Employment start and end dates
• Company name and location
• Key responsibilities 
• Significant achievements

We suggest including up to six responsibilities underneath each job, being mindful not to fall into repetition. If you’ve mentioned “contract drafting” in one role, talk about “legal research” in another. Spotlighting a diverse collection of skills will show the employer the breadth of your capabilities.

The overall tone should be confident and upbeat – even if you know you’re up against more experienced applicants. As such, lead with engaging action verbs and positive adjectives that rouse excitement. Before writing this section, create a bank of words to pick from when you need extra inspiration.

Lastly, ensure all information is relevant to the job description. Legal advisors span all industries and possess many specialisms. For example, you don’t need to detail harassment suits if the job you’re applying for focuses on contract disputes.

Example of work experience for a legal advisor CV

Skills worth having on your legal advisor CV

Did you know that recruiters only spend about six seconds looking at each CV they receive? As such, you need to quickly catch their attention by presenting a medley of irresistible CV skills.

So, what are CV skills? Quite simply, they are a showreel of your most valuable competencies and qualities. The most successful applications combine hard skills with soft skills. The former covers technical knowledge like “drafting legal documents” and “negotiating contracts”, while the latter focuses on personality-based traits like “empathy” and “discipline”.

Most candidates fall into the trap of only including hard skills because they think it’ll make them a more attractive prospect. However, it risks sounding cold and robotic. Employers also want to know whether you have the right character to fit in with the wider company culture.

Our top advice is to mention 8-12 skills in total, split evenly between the above. Resist the urge to copy from the job spec and stay as authentic as possible – recruiters have an uncanny ability to tell fact from fiction!

To make things easier, here are some essential and nice-to-have skills to include on your legal advisor CV:

How to add education to your legal advisor CV

As you can imagine, becoming a legal advisor requires a comprehensive education to back up tangible work experience. The highly technical nature of the role means candidates can’t blag their way in – they must prove they possess the niche knowledge to hit the ground running!

How do you become a legal advisor? The path is long but oh-so-rewarding. Most employers require a Law degree – paired with a qualification to practise as a barrister or solicitor from the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) or the Legal Practise Course (LPC). If you studied a different subject (like Sports or Engineering), you’d also need to complete a Conversion Graduate Diploma in Law.

Some companies prefer applicants who specialise in a particular field. So, it’s a good idea to mention any relevant modules that were part of your university course. For instance, it would be beneficial to say that you studied “Banking and Fintech Law” if you were applying for a legal advisor position in the finance sector.

In this section, include the following:

• Name of school, college, university, or other awarding body
• Study dates
• Subject title – no need for GCSEs
• Qualification level – e.g. GCSE or undergraduate degree
• Qualification result

Example of education for a legal advisor CV