How to Write a Law Internship Cover Letter

A cover letter is the formal document you attach when a firm or organisation has advertised an internship and asked for one. It is not the same thing as the email you send it with, and the commonest mistake is writing the same words twice. The email is the envelope. The letter is the application.

When you actually need one

You need a cover letter when the posting asks for one, when you are applying to an organisation with a formal recruitment process such as a large firm, a company’s legal team, an NGO with funded positions, or a government or regulatory body. You do not need one when writing a short cold email to an advocate’s chamber, where a letter attached to a three line email looks stiff.

If the posting asks for a “statement of purpose” or “statement of interest”, that is a cover letter with a different name.

What goes in, in order

1. Your details and the date, top right or top left, consistently.
2. The addressee, by name where you can find it, with the organisation and city.
3. A subject line. “Application for internship, general corporate team, November 2026.”
4. Opening paragraph: who you are and what you are applying for. Two sentences.
5. Second paragraph: why this organisation. The paragraph that gets skipped and should not be.
6. Third paragraph: what you have actually done, with evidence.
7. Fourth paragraph: what you want to learn, and your dates.
8. Close. One line.

One page. A second page will not be read.

A full sample

Priya Nair, fourth year, B.A. LL.B. (Hons.), Gujarat National Law University

priya.nair@example.com, +91 XXXXXXXXXX

14 October 2026

Ms Kavita Desai, Recruitment Team, [Firm name], Mumbai

Subject: Application for internship, dispute resolution team, 5 to 30 January 2027

Dear Ms Desai,

I am a fourth year student at Gujarat National Law University and I am applying for an internship with the firm’s dispute resolution team for four weeks from 5 January 2027.

My interest is in arbitration, and specifically in the enforcement stage. I spent last summer at a chamber in Ahmedabad working on two applications under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, where my job was to prepare the chronology and summarise the award and the objections. What I took from it was how much of the argument is settled by the record rather than by the law, and I would like to see how that looks from the other side of a larger practice.

In college I am an editor of the law review, where I review three to four submissions a month and have learned to cut other people’s writing without losing their argument. I was part of the team that reached the quarter finals of the [name] arbitration moot in 2026, where I argued the jurisdictional half of the case. My CV sets out the rest, and I have attached a research note I wrote on the public policy ground under Section 34 as a writing sample.

I am available from 5 to 30 January and can start earlier if that suits the team better. I would be glad to be considered for a later period if January is already full.

Thank you for your time.

Yours sincerely,

Priya Nair

Why each paragraph is there

The opening tells the reader what they are holding. Recruitment teams read dozens of these in a sitting and they are looking first for the team and the dates.

The second paragraph is the one that does the work. Notice that it does not praise the firm. It says what the writer is interested in, gives evidence that the interest is real, and names something she actually learned. A sentence about the firm’s “stellar reputation” and “esteemed position in the legal fraternity” says nothing, and every reader knows it was pasted.

The third paragraph gives evidence with specifics: how many submissions a month, which half of the moot she argued. “Excellent research and communication skills” is a claim. “I review three to four submissions a month” is a fact, and the reader draws the conclusion themselves, which is more persuasive.

The fourth removes the obstacles: dates, flexibility, and an easy alternative to saying no outright.

Formatting

• PDF. Named with your own name, not “cover letter”.
• One page, 11 or 12 point, a plain serif or sans serif face.
• No letterhead, no logo, no photograph unless asked.
• No coloured text and no design flourishes. This is not a design portfolio.
• Proofread it twice, then read it aloud once. Reading aloud catches the sentences that do not work.

What to do when you have little to put in it

First and second year students often feel they have nothing to write in the third paragraph. You have more than you think: a moot, a research paper, a college legal aid cell, a published article, a language you read bare acts in, work you did for a family business.

What you should not do is inflate. A claim to have “assisted in drafting a writ petition” when you proofread one is the kind of thing that collapses in thirty seconds if someone asks about it, and the person reading your letter has drafted many writ petitions.

If the honest answer is that you have not done much yet, write a shorter letter and make the second paragraph carry the weight. Genuine, specific interest in a subject is persuasive from a first year student in a way that a padded CV is not.

One letter per application

You can keep a skeleton, but the second paragraph has to be rewritten every time, because it is the only part that cannot be reused. A letter that mentions the wrong firm’s name is not a small error, and it happens often enough that recruitment teams look for it.