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Hi All,

Anonymous posting this because I'd prefer that anyone I work with not know I'm updating my resume...

Fairly simple question: does a clerkship get its own section on my resume, and if so, does that section go before my other legal experience (i.e. my current firm job)? I'm pretty sure I've seen this before, but I'm not sure if that's an academia thing or more general.

FWIW, my clerkship was in the location where I'm going to be sending my resume (not currently working in that location), so it make sense to me to highlight it to potential employers. Thoughts?

TYIA.

***Edited to fix it's/its. Yikes! It's early...***

I have generally seen it just listed chronologically as part of legal experience, myself - on firm bios they often get listed separately so I'm sure there's a way to do that, but I haven't really seen it. (But it's not like I've seen every resume out there, either.)

I think this is a mostly academic thing. I am currently a CoA clerk and have been going through a lot of resumes, many of which have district court clerkships listed. None have been in a separate section. I would highlight the clerkship in the cover letter--you love your time in [ ] clerking for [ ] and hope to return blah blah blah.

I wouldn't create a separate section for one position.

I've used some specialized legal experience sections on past resumes, as in "XYZtopicArea Experience" followed by "Other Legal Experience," and I could see that working just fine with a "Judicial Experience" section. But it would seem awkward if there were only one item in such a section or if the judicial experience was listed higher on the resume than was the section that includes experience in the area of law applicable to the sought position.

OP here. Thank you all for your thoughts. To elaborate a little, I have only five months of firm experience thus far. I can embellish that experience on my resume as people tend to do, but in truth, I've been EXTREMELY slow and haven't really gotten into anything much substantive, which is part of why I am considering highlighting the clerkship instead. I stand a much better chance in an interview if that's what they're interested in.

I'll take all of this under advisement. Thanks again.

Anonymous User wrote:OP here. Thank you all for your thoughts. To elaborate a little, I have only five months of firm experience thus far. I can embellish that experience on my resume as people tend to do, but in truth, I've been EXTREMELY slow and haven't really gotten into anything much substantive, which is part of why I am considering highlighting the clerkship instead. I stand a much better chance in an interview if that's what they're interested in.

I'll take all of this under advisement. Thanks again.

For what it's worth, I list my clerkships in a separate section right under education. Part of this is because I have two so they take up more space, and also because they are my most recent work experience. But I also felt that they were substantially more meaningful than a string of clinical, intern, and summer associate experiences, all of which were short-term/not full time. So I think in the right circumstances it can make sense.