Legal extern resume examples from 2026

A well-written resume summary is basically an elevator pitch. You are summing up your skills and experience in a few sentences to wow recruiters, hiring managers, and decision makers into giving you an interview. Here are some tips to putting your best foot first with your resume summary:

Step 1: Mention your current job title or the role you're pursuing.

Step 2: Include your years of experience in legal extern-related roles. Consider adding relevant company and industry experience as relevant to the job listing.

Step 3: Highlight your greatest accomplishments. Here is your chance to make sure your biggest wins aren't buried in your resume.

Step 4: Again, keep it short. Your goal is to summarize your experience and highlight your accomplishments, not write a paragraph.

These tips will help you demonstrate why you are the perfect fit for the legal extern position.

Use your Skills section to show you have the knowledge and technical ability to do the job. Here is how to make the most of your skills section and make sure you have the right keywords:

1. You often need to include the exact keywords from the job description in your resume. Look at the job listing and consider which of the listed skills you have experience with, along with related skills.
2. Include as many relevant hard skills and soft skills as possible from the listing.
3. Use the most up to date and accurate terms. Don't forget to be specific.

These five steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some legal extern interviews.

Your employment history is arguably one of the most important parts of your resume. It shows you have experience and foundation in your field to successfully master the legal extern position. Here is how to most effectively structure your work experience:

1. List your most recent experience first, followed by earlier roles in reverse chronological order. Employers care about your most recent experience the most.
2. Start with your job title, company name, city, and state on the left. Align dates in month and year format on the right-hand side.
3. Include only recent, relevant jobs.

Remember, your resume is not a list of responsibilities or a job description. This is your chance to show why you're good at your job and what you accomplished.

Use the XYZ formula for your work experience bullet points. Here's how it works:

• Use strong action verbs like Led, Built, or Optimized.
• Follow up with numbers when possible to support your results. How much did performance improve? How much revenue did you drive?
• Wrap it up by explaining the actions you took to achieve the result and how you made an impact.

This creates bullet points that read Achieved X, measured by Y, by doing Z.

Here are great bullet points from legal extern resumes:

Employers are looking for a few things when looking at the Education section of your resume:

• The highest degree you have achieved.
• TWhere you attended school, and the dates (Although if you graduated some time ago, leave the date off to avoid ageism)
• TField of study
• TAny honors, relevant coursework, achievements, or pertinent activities

Here are some examples of good education entries for resumes:

If you have any additional certifications or education-like achievements, add them to the education section.

Include the full name of the certification, along with the name of the issuing organization and date of obtainment.

If you have any of these certifications, be sure to include them on your legal extern resume:

1. Certified International Trade Law Specialist (CITLS)
2. Certified Legal Secretary Specialist: Intellectual Property (CL§)
3. MEDIC First Aid BasicPlus - G2010
4. Specialist Certificate: Legal (SC:L)
5. Certified Paralegal/Certified Legal Assistant (CP/CLA)
6. Board Certification in Criminal Trial Law
7. Professional Legal Secretary (PLS)
8. Medical Assistant (MA)
9. Advanced Paralegal Certification (APC)
10. Certified Legal Assistant Specialist: Civil Litigation (CLAS)