Prosecutor CV Examples & Writing Guide

Two pages at most, written for a recruitment panel at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The person is invented and the area office is not named. The caseload, trial counts and application numbers are the sort of figures you can take from your own case management system and trial log.

• Your professional status gets its own line near the top: admitted as a solicitor or called to the Bar, with the year, your Inn if you are a barrister, and any higher rights of audience. An unstated status raises a question you do not want raised.
• Education goes first for a law student or a lawyer in their first two or three years, and after experience once you have real trial work behind you.
• Mooting, law clinics, pro bono work, law journals and prizes stay on the page longer in law than in other fields, but they move to a shorter line as your trial record grows.
• Judicial assistant posts are listed as jobs, with the court and the dates. Say which court and, where relevant, which division.
• A short 'Representative cases' or 'Trial experience' block is normal and expected. Use it.
• Keep it to two pages, and one is fine early on. Many public sector employers recruit through an online application form, so the CV backs up the form rather than replacing it.

• Trial numbers. Jury trials to verdict, summary trials, contested hearings argued. Prosecutors staff courtrooms, so they hire people who can stand up in one.
• Caseload size and type. Ninety-five live Crown Court cases is a different job from twelve, and the panel knows the difference.
• Judgment. Charging decisions, discontinuances, out-of-court disposals and decisions on acceptable pleas show whether you can apply the evidential and public interest stages of the Code for Crown Prosecutors, which is the part of the job that keeps supervisors awake.
• Volume work you can absorb: first-hearing lists, pre-charge decisions, remand courts, domestic abuse lists.
• Why this role. Prosecutors move for reasons: caseload, public service, family, a specific unit. One clear sentence in your supporting statement or cover letter beats a paragraph of generic public-service language.
• Reference quality. This is a small profession with a long memory; every claim on the page will be checked with someone who was in the courtroom.

“Give me trials to verdict, current caseload and the units you have covered. That tells me whether you can carry a courtroom on Monday. Half the applications I read describe legal research and drafting, which is what every lawyer does, and never mention a single trial.”

This is the section that separates a prosecutor's CV from a general legal CV. Keep it tight, factual and free of names.

Prosecuting authorities take on newly qualified lawyers and trainees and expect you to have almost no trial record. What they want is evidence you have been in a courtroom, that you can carry volume, and that you understand what the job actually involves.

1. 1Lead with courtroom exposure. Law students in England and Wales cannot appear in the criminal courts the way US students can under a practice rule, so your strongest cards are advocacy during pupillage or a training contract, marshalling, criminal mini-pupillages and tribunal representation through the Free Representation Unit or a law clinic. Give the court, the number of hearings and the supervision arrangement.
2. 2List clinics as jobs: criminal appeals clinic, miscarriage of justice project, domestic abuse advice clinic. Give the case count and what you personally handled.
3. 3Put mooting, advocacy competitions and mock trial results on the page. They are the closest proxy a student has to trial skill.
4. 4Give research and writing volume: 'drafted 25 bad character and hearsay applications and 12 disclosure reviews' rather than 'assisted lawyers with legal research'.
5. 5Show comfort with volume and unglamorous work. First-hearing lists and charging review are where new prosecutors live for two years.
6. 6Say where your qualification stands: SQE passed and qualifying work experience under way, Bar Course completed, called with pupillage to start, or admitted on a date. Never leave it ambiguous.

• Two pages at most, and one early in your career. Prosecuting authorities read a lot of applications and value brevity.
• PDF, single column, plain headings, conservative type. No photo and no date of birth on a UK CV.
• Public sector employers often recruit through online forms (CPS vacancies appear on Civil Service Jobs) that parse text badly, so keep tables and columns out and repeat key facts (qualification, trial counts) in the plain text of the application form too.
• Include a writing sample only when asked, and pick an application or skeleton argument you wrote alone. Redact names before you send it.
• Cover letters and supporting statements matter more here than in most fields. Say why this role and this area, and be specific.
• Expect pre-employment vetting and a reference from someone who has seen you in court. Write nothing you would not want checked that way.