Law Student cover letter example.

Dear Ms. Calloway,

My Westlaw and Lexis+ certifications from Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis sit on my resume because firms screen for those exact platforms, but the certificates are the smallest part of what I do with the tools. As a research assistant for Professor David N. Okafor, I built a citation table for a forthcoming article on administrative-law deference standards and confirmed every authority on both Westlaw and Bloomberg Law before it reached his draft. That checking discipline is what I would bring to Halstead Marrow LLP as a 2L summer associate in litigation. I am a JD candidate at Michigan Law, Class of 2027.

Last summer I interned for the Hon. Patricia L. Reyes in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, where I drafted bench memoranda on pending motions to dismiss and summary judgment and summarized controlling Sixth Circuit authority for the judge's review. As an associate editor on the Michigan Journal of Law Reform, I run line-by-line Bluebook citation review on 40-plus footnotes per article and verify primary sources through HeinOnline, Westlaw, and PACER to confirm each authority stands for the proposition cited. I also wrote a 30-page appellate brief on a Fourth Amendment suppression issue for the Campbell Moot Court Competition and argued it before a three-judge panel, advancing to the quarterfinal round out of 64 competitors.

The value I would add early is simple: research questions come back from me cited, source-checked, and ready for an associate to rely on without a second pass. A graded legal-writing sample is available on request, and my resume is attached. I can take a call this week or meet at your Ann Arbor office on any weekday you set.