On The Value Of Drafting An Anti-Résumé

Everybody has embarrassments in their past; the anti-résumé is the place to collect them.

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Folks polish their credentials, and their egos, when they draft their résumés.

Maybe there should be a rule: If you’re going to draft a résumé, you must simultaneously draft an anti-résumé.

Just to keep your ego in check.

Let me give an example. I knew a litigator (now retired) who bragged about his or her credentials in an online bio: “Has spent more than a year of [his or her] life in trial.” Blah, blah, blah.

In truth, the defense lawyer had tried only one case in his or her life. The case happened to involve a long trial — it ran for more than a year. At the end of the trial that he or she had defended, the jury awarded more in damages than the plaintiff’s lawyer had requested in closing argument.

Any sensible client would look at that experience and think: “That’s not the kind of lawyer that I’d like to hire.” But all you know from reading the résumé is “spent more than a year of [his or her] life in trial.” That sounds like an experienced trial lawyer.

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The anti-résumé would be more honest: “Has tried only one case in [his or her] life; served as defense counsel; and the jury awarded more in damages than the plaintiff’s lawyer requested in closing argument.”

Even if you’re not obligated to post the honest description on your firm’s website, maybe you should be obligated to write it up, just to keep your ego in check.

Everyone could write an anti-résumé.  At one end of the spectrum, an anti-résumé would say:

Northwest South Dakota Law School, the only place that accepted me.

More “thank the lordy” than “cum laude.”

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Law review:  What’s that?

But you’d see the same thing at the other end of the spectrum:

Top 14 Law School  (Yale rejected me).

Note editor, law review (I applied for editor-in-chief; I was rejected).

Federal appellate court clerk (I applied for a Supreme Court clerkship; I was rejected).

And so on.

You’d have to list all your legal failures: All the trials that you’ve lost. All the appeals that went the other way. All the arguments you’ve neglected to make and only noticed after the case was over; questions you asked poorly at deposition, depriving your client of a chance for summary judgment; questions that you neglected to ask at deposition, depriving yourself of ammunition at trial; big clients that you could have landed, but you didn’t say the right thing at a beauty contest; whatever.

Everybody has embarrassments in their past; the anti-résumé is the place to collect them.

Are you a partner at a big firm? Not the managing partner, I bet.

Oh — you’re the managing partner? At what firm? Where’s that firm on the Am Law profits-per-partner list?

Oh — you’re the managing partner at a great firm? Have you applied for any judgeships? Run for political office? Hinted at your desire to become the general counsel of some company? Succeeded in obtaining for your firm all the things you’d hoped? Think honestly about all of your disappointments, and put them in your anti-résumé. It’s good for the soul.

Are you a general counsel?

At that company? Couldn’t you do better?

Oh — that is a good company. Why aren’t you the CEO? When have you embarrassed yourself in legal advice you’ve given?

Think about all of the cringeworthy moments in your past and all of the disappointments that you’ve suffered.

After you get through polishing your résumé, write your anti-résumé.

It should hurt to write the thing, as you relive all the professional mistakes and disappointments that you’ve suffered during your career.

It should also help to keep your ego in check.


Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.