Do resumes have to be in that godawful format that everyone uses? Forum

[Germaine]

Three resume questions for people who read a lot of law school resumes. (Be nice. Our career services office is useless):

(1)The standard law school resume format breaks like every rule for readability (no white space, awful typeface, etc.). So if a person used a more readable (but by no means flashy or cutesy) resume format, would it raise some kind of red flag? Is it better just to stick with that ugly format that everyone uses?

(2) Is there a best way to list law review for rising 2L? Will be staff, but not officially on it until after OCI. Does it go in education/law school/activities? Or just its own line below GPA, like: Journal of Meh, Staff Member?

(3) Our legal writing class is pass/fail/honors. If we got honors as a grade, we don't list that on resume, correct? Assume it will be read on transcript?

[rpupkin]

Three resume questions for people who read a lot of law school resumes. (Be nice. Our career services office is useless):

(1)The standard law school resume format breaks like every rule for readability (no white space, awful typeface, etc.). So if a person used a more readable (but by no means flashy or cutesy) resume format, would it raise some kind of red flag? Is it better just to stick with that ugly format that everyone uses?

(2) Is there a best way to list law review for rising 2L? Will be staff, but not officially on it until after OCI. Does it go in education/law school/activities? Or just its own line below GPA, like: Journal of Meh, Staff Member?

(3) Our legal writing class is pass/fail/honors. If we got honors as a grade, we don't list that on resume, correct? Assume it will be read on transcript?

(1) Unless you're desperately trying to stand out for some reason (e.g., you have bad grades and need a miracle to land an interview), just do what everyone else does.

(2) Write: "Law Review, Member, 2015-16." So long as your appointment/election/whatever is official, you can (and should) list your law review membership even though you haven't officially started. And, yes, it should go under law school activities.

(3) If the grade is on your transcript, there's no reason to put it on your resume. The exception to this rule is an award that indicates you're the top student in the class--e.g., a Book Award or a "Cali" Award or whatever. It's fine to list these under "honors" on a resume. But a simple "H" grade in legal writing? That doesn't merit a line on a resume, imo.

[Germaine]

K thanks. Knew the book award rule, but was surprised to see some students from my school listing honors for legal writing. Hard to believe an employer would really care one way or another, but neurotic 1L asks neurotic 1L questions.

[rpupkin]

K thanks. Knew the book award rule, but was surprised to see some students from my school listing honors for legal writing. Hard to believe an employer would really care one way or another, but neurotic 1L asks neurotic 1L questions.

It's not a stupid question. For what it's worth, I've seen several resumes where an applicant singles out a strong grade (e.g., "A in Torts", "H in Contracts"). Usually, this tactic is employed by students with a low overall GPA/class rank. So when I see this kind of thing on a resume, it signals "weak student" to me.

Now, this doesn't really matter much one way or the other, because I'm going to look at the applicant's transcript anyway. I'm going to see all the bad grades and all the good grades. But to the extent that resumes are about creating a particular impression on the reader, I suspect that the "highlight one strong grade" tactic generally produces the opposite of the intended effect.