{"id":155005,"date":"2026-06-17T15:52:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T23:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/06\/17\/does-ai-give-male-lawyers-better-resumes\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T15:52:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T23:52:21","slug":"does-ai-give-male-lawyers-better-resumes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/06\/17\/does-ai-give-male-lawyers-better-resumes\/","title":{"rendered":"Does AI Give Male Lawyers Better Resumes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, a fascinating thread by Jen Horsburgh<\/a> described her recent experience using AI to update her resume. After asking Google\u2019s Gemini to clean up her resume, she ran it again under her a man\u2019s name, and watched the model mechanically rewrite the same career into two different people \u2014 one of which it rammed into a glass ceiling. Jennifer\u2019s volunteer work became \u201ccommunity service.\u201d Jeff\u2019s became \u201cleadership.\u201d Jennifer \u201cassisted with\u201d and \u201ccollaborated on\u201d projects. Jeff \u201cengineered\u201d and \u201carchitected\u201d the same work. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to completely purge AI of biases. The nature of the technology is predicting the next word based on training data steeped in hundreds of years of bias. But Horsburgh\u2019s post serves as a reminder that the effort to constrain AI bias delivers mixed results.<\/p>\n

But does this phenomenon survive contact with the legal profession?<\/p>\n

Resumes matter up and down the legal industry, but now that law students are getting hired before ever taking a test<\/a> and laterals represent the majority of firm hires<\/a>, resumes have become all the more essential. And since, in my experience, lawyers hate updating their resumes, the invention of a magic word machine presents a powerful temptation to farm out resume drafting to the attorney\u2019s chatbot of choice. <\/p>\n

So we decided to try a quick experiment to see how Gemini \u2014 not to pick on them, but to mirror Horsburgh\u2019s experience \u2014 would handle a Biglaw resume. Picking eight real associate bios (four men, four women) from the New York Corporate practice sections of three Biglaw firms half men and half women, we created a single fictional Dewey, Cheatum & Howe fifth-year M&A associate profile. Then we fed this identical record into Gemini in two clean chats \u2014 one for \u201cVivian\u201d and one for \u201cThomas.\u201d Everything held constant except the name.<\/p>\n

To deliver the verdict up front\u2026 the robot mostly behaved. The bot avoided the sort of \u201cengineered\u201d versus \u201cassisted\u201d errors in the original thread\u2019s example. Both candidates \u201crepresented\u201d and \u201cadvised\u201d clients, and both \u201cdrafted and negotiated\u201d agreements. The output even highlighted both for having \u201cmanaged\u201d and \u201csupervised\u201d junior associates. If you were grading on the curve set by the viral version, AI passed.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not exactly grading onto law review.<\/p>\n

The Thomas draft included a professional summary describing him as a \u201cHigh-performing, fifth-year Corporate M&A Associate with extensive experience execution-managing complex domestic and cross-border transactions,\u201d with a \u201cProven track record\u2026.\u201d Vivian\u2019s draft summed up her current role as to \u201cAdvise public and private companies, private equity sponsors, and boards of directors on complex domestic and cross-border transactions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody told Gemini that Thomas was high-performing or had extensive experience. Both candidates had only two jobs post-law school: their federal clerkship in Delaware and their associate gig at Dewey Cheatum. Their deals were all the same. As a practical matter, the description on the Thomas resume is just puffery, but on a resume, puffery is half the battle. Along with the font<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gemini also completely ignored Vivian\u2019s pro bono work, while working it into the closing of Thomas\u2019s described his work for \u201ca regional nonprofit arts organization in a strategic affiliation\/merger with a neighboring institution\u201d and as a \u201cvolunteer attorney at a veterans\u2019 discharge-upgrade clinic.\u201d This sees and raises the Horsburgh experience. The AI slapped dismissive language on Horsburgh\u2019s work for a charity, and here it just erased Vivian\u2019s altogether. <\/p>\n

Each candidate\u2019s academic credentials came through, though the bot felt the need to provide a parenthetical description of Thomas\u2019s law school note \u2014 \u201cMAE Clauses In The Time Of Cholera\u201d \u2014 while just leaving the bare citation on Vivian\u2019s. Thomas\u2019s moot court semifinal is filed under \u201cHonors\u201d with his Order of the Coif designation, while Vivian\u2019s got bumped down to \u201cActivities\u201d next to her membership in the Business Law Association. <\/p>\n

Lawyers like to pretend that the work is all that matters, but we know that these sections matter<\/a>. In this experiment, we didn\u2019t give the bot any hobbies that mark high society status like an amateur polo career or visiting Epstein\u2019s island, but how the bot characterized an identical extracurricular as an achievement for one and a participation trophy for the other can carry significant baggage when the interviewer skims the document 20 seconds before the interview. Because those eyes are more likely to jump to honors and that might be the difference between spending the next 10 minutes swapping moot court war stories and awkwardly rambling about Delaware law. <\/p>\n

And in a detail that\u2019s probably not an example of patriarchy as much as general AI hallucination, the \u201c$700M Portfolio Bolt-On Program\u201d that both worked on was described as a \u201c$700\u201d program for Vivian. Maybe that\u2019s the pro bono work it thought she did?<\/p>\n

Though not every discrepancy worked against Vivian. She was described as the \u201cprimary author\u201d of a transition services agreement \u2014 a status Gemini never bestowed on Thomas. She \u201cmanaged a team of 12,\u201d whereas his team had no number. She was \u201cLead On-Campus Interviewer\u201d to his ordinary \u201cinterviewer,\u201d and \u201cprimary liaison with UK magic circle counsel\u201d to his \u201cUK co-counsel.\u201d Not sure it\u2019s appropriate not to capitalize \u201cmagic circle\u201d (or to use the old Magic Circle<\/a> at this point), but whatever.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t meant to downplay the bias risk inherent in this technology, but it\u2019s possible<\/em> that the conventions of describing legal work are homogenized enough to gloss over most sexist language choices. Deviating from the \u201cRepresented [Client] in its $3.8 billion take-private acquisition of [Target]\u201d formula to insert more purple prose just looks weird. There\u2019s no slot to slide \u201cengineered\u201d into it when the verbs were selected by the 50,000 identical attorney bios that the bot read before. So the \u201cgood\u201d news is that legal already strips people of most of their humanity!<\/p>\n

Still, this should put everyone on alert that resume drafting is cannot become a \u201chit it and forget it\u201d task. Even working off the exact same data, the bots will make choices that don\u2019t necessarily show the attorney in the best possible light. Run more than one draft and take the time to consider what each does well and what each manages to botch. <\/p>\n

And it might not be a bad idea to run a couple versions with a different name\u2026 just to see what mischief the AI gets up to. <\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Biglaw Now Hires More Lateral Associates Than Law Students<\/a>
What Font Should You Use For Your R\u00e9sum\u00e9? Apparently This Matters To People.<\/a>
Biglaw Hiring Bias? Men With High-Class Hobbies More Likely To Get Summer Associate Interviews Than Women<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Does AI Give Male Lawyers Better Resumes?<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, a fascinating thread by Jen Horsburgh<\/a> described her recent experience using AI to update her resume. After asking Google\u2019s Gemini to clean up her resume, she ran it again under her a man\u2019s name, and watched the model mechanically rewrite the same career into two different people \u2014 one of which it rammed into a glass ceiling. Jennifer\u2019s volunteer work became \u201ccommunity service.\u201d Jeff\u2019s became \u201cleadership.\u201d Jennifer \u201cassisted with\u201d and \u201ccollaborated on\u201d projects. Jeff \u201cengineered\u201d and \u201carchitected\u201d the same work. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to completely purge AI of biases. The nature of the technology is predicting the next word based on training data steeped in hundreds of years of bias. But Horsburgh\u2019s post serves as a reminder that the effort to constrain AI bias delivers mixed results.<\/p>\n

But does this phenomenon survive contact with the legal profession?<\/p>\n

Resumes matter up and down the legal industry, but now that law students are getting hired before ever taking a test<\/a> and laterals represent the majority of firm hires<\/a>, resumes have become all the more essential. And since, in my experience, lawyers hate updating their resumes, the invention of a magic word machine presents a powerful temptation to farm out resume drafting to the attorney\u2019s chatbot of choice. <\/p>\n

So we decided to try a quick experiment to see how Gemini \u2014 not to pick on them, but to mirror Horsburgh\u2019s experience \u2014 would handle a Biglaw resume. Picking eight real associate bios (four men, four women) from the New York Corporate practice sections of three Biglaw firms half men and half women, we created a single fictional Dewey, Cheatum & Howe fifth-year M&A associate profile. Then we fed this identical record into Gemini in two clean chats \u2014 one for \u201cVivian\u201d and one for \u201cThomas.\u201d Everything held constant except the name.<\/p>\n

To deliver the verdict up front\u2026 the robot mostly behaved. The bot avoided the sort of \u201cengineered\u201d versus \u201cassisted\u201d errors in the original thread\u2019s example. Both candidates \u201crepresented\u201d and \u201cadvised\u201d clients, and both \u201cdrafted and negotiated\u201d agreements. The output even highlighted both for having \u201cmanaged\u201d and \u201csupervised\u201d junior associates. If you were grading on the curve set by the viral version, AI passed.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not exactly grading onto law review.<\/p>\n

The Thomas draft included a professional summary describing him as a \u201cHigh-performing, fifth-year Corporate M&A Associate with extensive experience execution-managing complex domestic and cross-border transactions,\u201d with a \u201cProven track record\u2026.\u201d Vivian\u2019s draft summed up her current role as to \u201cAdvise public and private companies, private equity sponsors, and boards of directors on complex domestic and cross-border transactions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody told Gemini that Thomas was high-performing or had extensive experience. Both candidates had only two jobs post-law school: their federal clerkship in Delaware and their associate gig at Dewey Cheatum. Their deals were all the same. As a practical matter, the description on the Thomas resume is just puffery, but on a resume, puffery is half the battle. Along with the font<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gemini also completely ignored Vivian\u2019s pro bono work, while working it into the closing of Thomas\u2019s described his work for \u201ca regional nonprofit arts organization in a strategic affiliation\/merger with a neighboring institution\u201d and as a \u201cvolunteer attorney at a veterans\u2019 discharge-upgrade clinic.\u201d This sees and raises the Horsburgh experience. The AI slapped dismissive language on Horsburgh\u2019s work for a charity, and here it just erased Vivian\u2019s altogether. <\/p>\n

Each candidate\u2019s academic credentials came through, though the bot felt the need to provide a parenthetical description of Thomas\u2019s law school note \u2014 \u201cMAE Clauses In The Time Of Cholera\u201d \u2014 while just leaving the bare citation on Vivian\u2019s. Thomas\u2019s moot court semifinal is filed under \u201cHonors\u201d with his Order of the Coif designation, while Vivian\u2019s got bumped down to \u201cActivities\u201d next to her membership in the Business Law Association. <\/p>\n

Lawyers like to pretend that the work is all that matters, but we know that these sections matter<\/a>. In this experiment, we didn\u2019t give the bot any hobbies that mark high society status like an amateur polo career or visiting Epstein\u2019s island, but how the bot characterized an identical extracurricular as an achievement for one and a participation trophy for the other can carry significant baggage when the interviewer skims the document 20 seconds before the interview. Because those eyes are more likely to jump to honors and that might be the difference between spending the next 10 minutes swapping moot court war stories and awkwardly rambling about Delaware law. <\/p>\n

And in a detail that\u2019s probably not an example of patriarchy as much as general AI hallucination, the \u201c$700M Portfolio Bolt-On Program\u201d that both worked on was described as a \u201c$700\u201d program for Vivian. Maybe that\u2019s the pro bono work it thought she did?<\/p>\n

Though not every discrepancy worked against Vivian. She was described as the \u201cprimary author\u201d of a transition services agreement \u2014 a status Gemini never bestowed on Thomas. She \u201cmanaged a team of 12,\u201d whereas his team had no number. She was \u201cLead On-Campus Interviewer\u201d to his ordinary \u201cinterviewer,\u201d and \u201cprimary liaison with UK magic circle counsel\u201d to his \u201cUK co-counsel.\u201d Not sure it\u2019s appropriate not to capitalize \u201cmagic circle\u201d (or to use the old Magic Circle<\/a> at this point), but whatever.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t meant to downplay the bias risk inherent in this technology, but it\u2019s possible<\/em> that the conventions of describing legal work are homogenized enough to gloss over most sexist language choices. Deviating from the \u201cRepresented [Client] in its $3.8 billion take-private acquisition of [Target]\u201d formula to insert more purple prose just looks weird. There\u2019s no slot to slide \u201cengineered\u201d into it when the verbs were selected by the 50,000 identical attorney bios that the bot read before. So the \u201cgood\u201d news is that legal already strips people of most of their humanity!<\/p>\n

Still, this should put everyone on alert that resume drafting is cannot become a \u201chit it and forget it\u201d task. Even working off the exact same data, the bots will make choices that don\u2019t necessarily show the attorney in the best possible light. Run more than one draft and take the time to consider what each does well and what each manages to botch. <\/p>\n

And it might not be a bad idea to run a couple versions with a different name\u2026 just to see what mischief the AI gets up to. <\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Biglaw Now Hires More Lateral Associates Than Law Students<\/a>
What Font Should You Use For Your R\u00e9sum\u00e9? Apparently This Matters To People.<\/a>
Biglaw Hiring Bias? Men With High-Class Hobbies More Likely To Get Summer Associate Interviews Than Women<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Does AI Give Male Lawyers Better Resumes?<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, a fascinating thread by Jen Horsburgh described her recent experience using AI to update her resume. After asking Google\u2019s Gemini to clean up her resume, she ran it again under her a man\u2019s name, and watched the model mechanically rewrite the same career into two different people \u2014 one of which it rammed into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":155006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Headshot-300x200-48v8Er.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}