Law Career Services Resources: Writing Samples

While your cover letters and resumes are obvious writing samples, you should be prepared to submit a formal legal writing sample as well. While a writing sample alone will not get you a job, it can be your undoing if you submit either poor or inappropriate work product.

Read the tips and guidelines below to make sure you are submitting an apropriate exmaple of your work product, free of errors, and representative of your best abilities.

• Provide persuasive writing of your own work (exclude parts written by others)
• Provide something recent that reflects your current legal abilities
• Provide about 5 – 10 pages of an easy to understand topic
• Change or redact confidential/sensitive information
• Avoid lurid or hot-button subjects, such as sex, politics, abortion
• Provide an explanatory cover sheet
• Obtain permission to use from employer

Guidelines for submitting writing samples from the ONU Law Office of Career Services and other career service professionals.