Legal Associate resume
A legal resume is read for practice area first and everything else second. Litigation and in-house advisory are different careers, and a page that does not say which reads as unfocused.
- 01Practice area: corporate, litigation, IP, compliance, real estate, arbitration.
- 02Bar Council enrolment number and year.
- 03Matter types and scale — deal values, contract volumes, forums appeared before.
- 04Drafting range, stated concretely rather than as "drafting and vetting".
Corporate
- due diligence
- share purchase agreement
- shareholders agreement
- M&A
- term sheet
Commercial
- contract drafting
- MSA
- NDA
- indemnity
- SLA
- vendor agreements
Compliance and disputes
- Companies Act
- SEBI regulations
- arbitration
- civil litigation
- regulatory filings
Put down only what is true and what you can be interviewed on. A term you cannot defend will win you the screening and then lose you the interview.
Involved in drafting and vetting of various agreements and legal documents.
Drafted and negotiated 120+ commercial contracts a year including MSAs and vendor agreements; ran legal due diligence on a 90 crore acquisition across three target entities.
- Not naming the practice area. It is the first cut a legal screener makes.
- "Drafting and vetting of various agreements" — the single most common line on an Indian legal resume, and it distinguishes nobody.
- Naming clients or matters that are confidential. Describe them by sector and scale instead.
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Check My ATS Score FreeShould I list reported judgments I worked on?
Yes, if they are public and your involvement is accurately described. A citation is strong, checkable evidence.
How do I move from litigation to in-house?
Lead with the transferable half — contract drafting, regulatory advice, risk assessment — and be explicit that the move is deliberate.
Does an LLM help?
For specialised practice areas and in-house roles, yes. State the specialisation, since that is what carries the value.