A strong legal writing sample is a recent piece of legal analysis you wrote almost entirely yourself, cleared for use outside the representation, and cut to what a hiring partner can read in one sitting.
For a law firm job that means a brief, motion, memo or contract excerpt that matches the practice you are applying to — redacted, explained by a cover sheet, and free of anything the confidentiality rules would not let you share.
What makes a good writing sample?
A writing sample is the attachment where a firm reads your work instead of your summary of it.
Assume the hiring partner reading it is asking what a client would ask: can this lawyer spot the issue, state the rule accurately, and carry an argument through to a conclusion — and is the writing clean enough to go out under the firm's name?
The question is not which document is most impressive but which one shows your own reasoning at its best.
That gives a good sample four qualities, and each is a choice you make before anything is attached:
- It matches the practice. A litigation opening sends a brief, a motion or a dispositive memo; a deal-side role wants drafting and analysis that show how you structure terms and explain them. Read the posting, then pick the document that resembles the work being hired.
- You wrote it. Sole author is ideal; primary drafter is honest and fine. A document shaped by a partner's line edits shows someone else's hand, so the cover sheet should say exactly what your role was.
- It is recent. Current work is the evidence of current skills; a sample from an earlier stage of your career undersells you, and a very old one can show habits you no longer have.
- It stands alone. A reader with no knowledge of the case should be able to follow it — the issue, the analysis and the result visible on the page without the file.
Polish is part of the argument.
A document whose entire pitch is careful legal work cannot afford a typo, a miscitation or an inconsistent caption, so proof the final version the way you would proof something being filed.
Where samples come from depends on your stage.
Practitioners draw on work product, which the section on permission and redaction takes up, because clearing it is a task of its own.
Students and recent graduates draw on journal notes, moot court or appellate advocacy briefs, seminar papers and memos from clinics, externships or internships — and should pick the piece where the reasoning runs longest, not the longest piece.
Send the sample out as part of the application packet, with your cover letter — the guide to attorney resumes covers the document it is stapled to.
How long should it be?
Start with whatever the application says.
If a posting specifies a length, a format or a subject, the instruction is part of the test — a sample that ignores it has already answered the firm's real question about how you follow direction.
Treat a stated page count the way you would treat a filing deadline: exact.
Where nothing is specified, the working principle is readability, not volume.
The reader needs to see complete reasoning — an issue spotted, a rule applied, an argument carried through — and that does not require your longest document.
Excerpting is fine when it is disclosed: take the section of a longer brief that carries the argument, note on the cover sheet that the sample is an excerpt, and offer the full version on request.
What you trim out should be duplication and procedural throat-clearing; the analysis stays, because the analysis is the sample.
Send one document unless a firm asks for more, and give a second sample the same discipline as the first — better one excellent brief than a stack of attachments nobody finishes.
If you are cutting a document down and wondering whether an edit is safe, the test is whether the writing still says what you wrote: shorten for space, never rework the substance.
A sample that no longer reflects your own writing misdescribes the one thing it exists to show.
Using work product: permission and redaction
For a practicing lawyer, the strongest candidates for a sample come out of client work — the motion you drafted, the memo that carried the analysis, the agreement you assembled.
That work is also the material the confidentiality rules reach — the version this section quotes is Ohio's — so this is the section to read slowly.
The duty this section cites is Ohio Rule 1.6(a), from the Ohio Rules of Professional Conduct as amended through January 1, 2026, which tracks ABA Model Rule 1.6 and is quoted from the Ohio Supreme Court's published rules.
Its core provision reads, in relevant part:
"A lawyer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of a client, including information protected by the attorney-client privilege under applicable law, unless the client gives informed consent, the disclosure is impliedly authorized in order to carry out the representation".
Those are the rule's first two paths; it goes on to permit disclosure in the situations its listed exceptions cover.
Reusing client work product as a writing sample sits inside this duty — a brief from a closed matter, a memo from a past deal, a client email: all of it is information relating to a representation, and none of it goes into an application by default.
The practical path is permission, and it runs through the people who manage the relationship rather than around them: the partner who owns the client's work, or the firm's general counsel.
Ask before the application goes out, not after; describe exactly what you want to send and what you propose to redact; and keep the email that documents the consent.
Where the consent the rule requires is the client's, the request runs through the same people — build in time for it ahead of your deadline.
Clerkship work is its own case.
Bench memos and draft orders are written for a judge rather than produced for a client, so the questions — who may release them, and in what form — run through the court rather than a firm.
Ask the chambers before anything written there becomes an attachment; the guide to clerkships covers what these roles involve.
Redaction is what makes a cleared document safe to circulate, and it is a discipline of its own:
- Remove everything that identifies the client: names, captions, matter and docket numbers, dates, dollar amounts, and industry details narrow enough to point back to one company.
- Replace specifics with placeholders or a generic description of the dispute or the deal — enough for a reader to follow the analysis, not enough to identify the matter.
- Leave the legal reasoning intact. The analysis is the part of the sample doing the work; scrubbing the facts does not require dulling the argument.
- Re-read the final version after redacting. The edits themselves introduce errors, and a redacted document gets one less pass than a filing would.
The rule quoted here is Ohio's — the rule where you practice governs you
Cover sheet wording
A cover sheet is the page in front of the sample that tells a reader what they are holding.
It answers, in a few lines, the questions a hiring partner would otherwise have to work out alone: what kind of document this is, when and in what setting you wrote it, what your role was, and what has been changed.
It is also where the honesty lives — a cover sheet that discloses the excerpt, the redactions and the consent is what makes all three transparent.
What belongs on it:
- What the document is — "Summary judgment motion (excerpt)" or "Client memo on deal structure," not just "Writing sample."
- Where and when it was written — the practice setting and the stage of your career when you produced it.
- Your role — sole author, primary drafter or contributor, stated plainly. Where others edited, say so; the claim can get tested in the interview, and an accurate one survives it.
- What was redacted or changed — the categories of detail removed or made generic.
- Permission — that the sample is shared with the client's consent.
- An offer — the full version is available on request.
Assembled, it can be as short as this — the details below are placeholders, not a real person, firm or matter:
Writing sample: appellate brief (excerpt). Sole author. Written while an associate at [Firm], in a commercial dispute; client, party and matter details redacted. Shared with the client's consent. Full brief available on request.
Two things a cover sheet should not do.
It should not advertise the client's confidential strategy — describe the type of matter, not the facts that make it identifiable; a reader who can name the client from your description is a reader you have failed.
And it should not inflate: present the sample as work you can stand behind if a firm checks it.
Samples for transactional roles
Transactional candidates face a framing problem litigators do not.
A finished agreement is the product of the whole table — client comments, opposing counsel's redlines, senior review — so the clean contract attached to an application can show the deal without showing your drafting.
The fix is not a better contract; it is a document whose authorship is unmistakable.
That can be any of these:
- A first-draft agreement you built from scratch, redacted like any other work product, with the cover sheet saying it is a first draft — the document shows how you structure terms, which is the skill a hiring partner is reading for.
- A client memo explaining a deal's structure, its risks or how responsibilities were allocated — analysis and explanation on paper is exactly the writing transactional practice runs on.
- An issue list, drafting checklist or annotated set of choices you made while producing a document — judgment, visible.
- Published or academic writing on a transactional topic — a journal note, an article, a practice note — where no client representation is involved, so there is no consent to clear.
The Ohio rule quoted above does not distinguish by practice area.
What it protects is information relating to the representation, whatever form it takes — in a transactional matter, the client's terms, pricing and business arrangements stand in the same position a litigator's case strategy does.
The same discipline follows: clear it, strip the identifying terms, and say on the cover sheet what was changed.
Where to find attorney jobs
With the sample chosen, cleared, redacted and covered, the openings are the next step.
Browse attorney jobs on LawFirmHires — the board carries legal jobs only, so each listing is a legal role, and you can narrow openings by pay range and benefits.
For the wider picture — practice settings, career ladders, licensing — the attorney careers hub is the place to start, and the application packet itself is covered in the guide to attorney resumes.
Career information, not legal advice. The confidentiality rule discussed here is Rule 1.6(a) of the Ohio Rules of Professional Conduct, as amended through January 1, 2026; the rule in force where you practice may differ, and it is the one that governs your applications. Confirm what it requires with your state's disciplinary authority and your current or former employer before any client work goes out.