Senior advocates and general counsel ask this to test judgement and honesty. Weaknesses around accuracy or deadlines are serious for lawyers, so choose gaps like advocacy nerves, business knowledge or litigation strategy for a transactional lawyer, and show structured improvement through practice, courses or mentoring.
My strength is simplifying legal advice for business teams. I write short emails with a clear recommendation and the one key risk instead of long memos, and our sales heads now come to me early because they know they’ll get an answer they can use. My weakness was litigation management. My background is contracts, so when disputes arose I relied on external counsel without questioning strategy or costs enough. I’ve started attending hearings in important matters and reading the pleadings in detail, and I set up a monthly review with our litigation counsel. I’m now confident discussing strategy with them, and our external legal spend has become more predictable.
Never losing an argument sounds arrogant, and working late is a disguised strength. The rewrite shows a real skill, a real gap and practical progress that colleagues have seen.
For students, interns and your first job.
My strength is legal research. In moot court competitions and internships I found relevant precedents quickly and summarised them clearly, and during one internship my senior relied on my research note while arguing an interim application. My weakness is oral advocacy under pressure. I prepare thoroughly, but I used to freeze when a judge asked an unexpected question. I’ve been attending court daily and noting down the questions benches ask, and I took part in two more moots specifically to practise rebuttals. In my last moot I handled the bench’s questions much more calmly, and our team reached the semi-finals, which I see as proof that the practice is working.
One strength is attention to detail in documents. During my internship I proofread a share purchase agreement and noticed that two clauses referred to different closing dates, which the associate corrected before it went out. My weakness is my understanding of business and finance. Corporate work needs a good sense of valuations and financial statements, which I didn’t study deeply in law school. I’ve started an online course in financial accounting for lawyers, and I read one listed company’s annual report every week. I can now read a balance sheet with confidence and see how deal terms connect to the numbers, which makes my diligence notes more useful.
For roughly 3 to 8 years in the field.
My strength is simplifying legal advice for business teams. I write short emails with a clear recommendation and the one key risk instead of long memos, and our sales heads now come to me early because they know they’ll get an answer they can use. My weakness was litigation management. My background is contracts, so when disputes arose I relied on external counsel without questioning strategy or costs enough. I’ve started attending hearings in important matters and reading the pleadings in detail, and I set up a monthly review with our litigation counsel. I’m now confident discussing strategy with them, and our external legal spend has become more predictable.
One strength is cross-examination. I prepare question sets carefully and build them around documents, and in commercial disputes I’ve been able to bring out inconsistencies in witness statements that the tribunal took note of. My weakness was technology. Our firm moved to a document management system and e-filing, and I adapted more slowly than the juniors, which caused a few internal delays before filings. I took training from our IT team and asked a junior to walk me through the e-filing steps twice. I now file independently, use the document system every day to track versions, and have not delayed a filing since.
For 10+ years, specialists and leaders.
My strength is mentoring young lawyers. Several associates I trained are now senior associates or partners elsewhere, and I still review juniors’ drafts line by line with explanations rather than simply rewriting them. My weakness is visibility. I built my practice through referrals and never wrote or spoke publicly, which kept our work less known than it could be. Within Bar Council norms on advertising, I’ve started writing articles on regulatory developments and speaking at academic seminars. Over the past year I’ve published three pieces, and they have led to invitations to lecture at two law schools, which has also helped us attract strong interns.
One strength is building compliance systems people actually follow. At my current company I set up a compliance calendar and an ownership matrix across departments, and internal audit found far fewer gaps in its next review. My weakness was impatience with slow decision-making. In a large organisation approvals take time, and I used to push too hard, which sometimes created friction with other leaders. I’ve learned to prepare decisions earlier, understand each stakeholder’s concerns and plan timelines realistically. My working relationships with finance and operations are much better now, and approvals move with less back and forth than before.
Written by the DigitalCVMaker team for lawyers applying in India. Every example is original — none is copied from a real person’s profile — and each is built around what employers and clients in this field look for: the role, a specialism, and proof you can back up. We revise the page when that changes; the date at the top shows the last update.
These are examples to adapt, not real people. Swap in your own numbers, specialisation, city and achievements — it only works when every word is true for you.
Avoid major drafting weaknesses, since drafting is central to litigation. You could mention something narrower, such as making written submissions more concise, and explain how you are improving it with feedback from seniors on each draft.
In-house panels look for business understanding and clear communication. Suitable weaknesses might be litigation strategy or finance knowledge. Strengths should connect to helping business teams, such as faster contract turnaround or plain-language risk advice that managers can act on.
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One strength is building compliance systems people actually follow. At my current company I set up a compliance calendar and an ownership matrix across departments, and internal audit found far fewer gaps in its next review. My weakness was impatience with slow decision-making. In a large organisation approvals take time, and I used to push too hard, which sometimes created friction with other leaders. I’ve learned to prepare decisions earlier, understand each stakeholder’s concerns and plan timelines realistically. My working relationships with finance and operations are much better now, and approvals move with less back and forth than before.