Transcript
Description:
The attorney resume that Harrison Barnes is assessing in this video shows that the attorney does not have a focused path. It much more conveyed the attorney as a legal generalist. To avoid this from happening, Barnes suggests that:
- When making a resume, make sure that you have a focused direction.
- Do not include non-legal job experience as it is irrelevant.
- Demonstrate that you are capable of working long term by concentrating on a few skills and experience.
Transcript:
Okay. So this person put their Texas bar number up there.
They put attorney at lot there. You don't really need that stuff there. I don't know that it's necessary to put your Skype ID and all this sort of thing. I think just putting your name and phone number and email, it's probably enough. Don't think you need to put a attorney at law. I do just kinda opening these grammar programs to sometimes take a look at how things are, w what's going on a on a different resume, but you can just see all these things that are being highlighted that need need attention.
And so you really need to, everyone should always look very closely this sort of overview again again, doesn't really matter people aren't, Vista attorney has time to re, to write a book about the internet of things that, that doesn't really bode well for the law firm because a law firms going to expect more people to work.
The NBA is unrelated to getting a law degree. So it, it detracts from the fact that you may want to do the work and then having a software sales and so forth people. Aren't necessarily going to be pressed with that. Now I'm looking at things that are going to be related to someone getting a job premiere in a law firm.
So that's kinda my concern, but if you're going to be getting a job in a law firm you do need to you want to look like someone that's going to do work in a law firm and not the opposite thing. Okay. So this person has a very resume that's fairly standard for some of that's been a contract attorney.
I would if this person has been a solo practitioner, I think, I don't know how you want to whatever, but it may make more sense to call yourself. Like solo practitioner and then talk about the different types of things you've or things you've worked on as a solo. And and that would be my.
The way I would approach it the problem with the, with this resume again, and I don't want to be critical because it's not really necessary, but the problem with it is if you've done all this work and you've never had a, kind of a permanent position that the law firm is going to assume that, it may be difficult managing you and so forth.
So you need to figure out how to massage that. And then that way, and then then this person was in house and then they went and did their own law firm. And then they were an attorney. You need to do whatever you can to and then they've done all these non-legal jobs, which I don't know how relevant they are.
I liked it. This person went, got an LLM. I don't like it when people put stuff about how a school ranks in a certain program this person has traditionally been a done all this different work. They may be interested in getting an intellectual property. It looks like they did some of this stuff there.
But then their solo practice, it looks like they were working on also similar types of stuff. Let's see here. So I just here, I would just ruck. I think this whole thing this needs to be cleaned up to some extent. I I just, the th there's just too much going on here.
You ideally should think about what you can do to make your resume a one page. And then if you really feel like other things are necessary there, that's fine. But this person, the problem I see when I look at a resume like this, and I see that this person went and got an MBA, and then I see that they went to law school and then I see that they decided 18 years later to get an MBA and a master's of law.
And then I see that they're listing all these, individual honors and so forth. And then I see that they've had all these non-legal jobs and there's nothing wrong with any of this. It's just that the person's got a very active mind and likes new experiences, and those are all good things.
But the big thing that a law firm and any employer is concerned about is will the person do the job long-term if they hire them and also can they be managed? And a lot of times, when you, when someone's going in a million different directions th shows that can't be managed. And so this is this, I'm sure that most of the majority of people on this call are probably going to be they're usually our younger attorneys.
I'm gonna get, hopefully see some younger resumes in a few minutes, but these this resume the person you have to look very focused like law firms. Oh one focus people and the ability to boil down a lot of information and make it succinct is a lawyer skill. It's a skill for transactions.
It's a skill for juries. It's a skill for everything. And the problem with this first resume for example, is this person, all this says is I'm a legal generalist. Like the first resume, just I'm a legal generalist and isn't this cute. I know how to put this code on my resume. And then this says I'm a legal generalist, but it says nothing about what the firm's really concerned about is how much businesses has person half.
And so I think a lot of times when I see resumes of people and this person is, this resume says. The, I'm just telling you like the message you get from resumes. This says I worked at some awesome law firms. I didn't make, didn't stay a partner, any of them I'm rich and I'm very talented and I'm very connected and know a lot of different stuff, but I've never been able to.
You don't get a lot of business. That's what that says about this. And I may be, I may have an, and I'm important and connected and probably, Richard and you, and no more people than, that's where that's, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that.
And some people want that this resume here says. The only thing it says is I'm an attorney in Germany, in the U S that's pretty much the only message I get out of this. And I knew, I know some of this stuff, but there's just too much on here. There's so much it confuses the reader.