Law Career Counselor
A Litigator’s View of Career Counseling
It's time to rethink how we look at cover letters vs. resumes. Cover letters can be difficult to write and when asking for assistance on creating a stellar cover letter, students often say, "I feel like I'm just repeating all of the information on my resume." To keep this from happening, I like to think of a resume as a "statement of facts" and a cover letter as the "argument" for why you should get the job. The two documents are connected and there will be overlap, but neither should too closely resemble the other.
When it comes to a resume, you want to be straightforward about your skills and accomplishments. But, just as with writing a statement of facts for a motion, you also want to be persuasive in the way that you present those skills and accomplishments, tailoring the contents to your audience. Did you "make appearances in court" at your last internship? Or, instead, did you "advocate for a client at a contested court hearing?" These are two ways of conveying the same information, but the mental image that is conjured when reading these two sentences is vastly different. Also, use a thesaurus to create varied language to keep your resume from sounding robotic while maintaining a formal tone. In short, give the reader - your prospective future employer - something interesting to read.
How do you make the cover letter an independent, interesting, persuasive document without it becoming a mirror of your resume? This can be hard because it's necessary to discuss the contents of your resume in the cover letter, since it is part of why you should "win" the job. But, just regurgitating facts over and over, as any law student will tell you, is not a successful argument. Shape the facts from your resume into a pitch for what makes you the best candidate for the job. This means doing research into your future employer and looking at your resume to see what skills, activities, and accomplishments would tend to suggest that you would be successful in your desired position.
Once you've done this preliminary search into what your prospective employer is looking for, take a pen to your resume and circle the skills that directly apply to your desired job. Those will be the central points to your cover letter "argument."
If there are other skills that don't directly translate, suggest how those skills would show an aptitude for performing the tasks required by the job that you want. For example, say you are applying for a position where trial experience is a highly desirable prerequisite, and your previous experience doesn't include trial work. Instead of merely highlighting that you have no trial experience, but have "always wanted to be a trial attorney," try looking deeper into your resume. Perhaps your previous positions did include litigating in court for some other sort of motion or hearing. Use that experience to show how you are comfortable arguing a point in front of a judge, addressing opposing counsel's arguments on the spot, and explaining all of this to your client - some of the same skills acquired during trial work. Show that you have the tools they are looking for, even if you don't have the exact experience they find desirable.
Last thought. Not everything from your resume, even some of your most amazing accomplishments, will support the "argument" that you are the person that should be hired. Although you may be incredibly proud of some aspects of your resume, trying to cram irrelevant things into a cover letter will only make it harder for you to "win" the job you want. Remember, the resume and cover letter are two separate documents. Your resume will have more general facts about you and your work while your cover letter will be more tailored to why you are the best candidate for the job. Resist the temptation to stray from your "argument" in the cover letter and rely on your resume to be the catch-all for your general achievements. Best of luck!
Prior to joining Golden Gate University, Corey worked with asbestos litigation boutique firm Kazan, McClain, Satterley, & Greenwood. In addition to her work on asbestos-related wrongful death and catastrophic personal injury cases, she worked as a pro bono attorney assisting women prisoners who were survivors of intimate partner battering. Corey then moved on to become a misdemeanor trial attorney with the Contra Costa Public Defenders Office before relocating to the San Francisco Public Defenders Office where she worked in both the misdemeanor and felony trial units. During her eight years as a public defender, Corey litigated dozens of trials on various criminal charges. If you have general questions about law career development, or more specific questions about criminal litigation, public interest law, or the GGU Bridge Fellowship, please make an appointment with Corey through the Law Career Development online.
