I use my law degree every day (just not in a law firm anymore)

When I studied law, I assumed I'd use my degree in a firm or as in-house counsel until the day I retired. These days I do use it, just not in a law firm.

I'm a Property Law Specialist at LEAP, and I made the switch from practice last year. My role sits between law, technology, product, and our clients. Where exactly it sits shifts from one day to the next. What ties it together is making sure LEAP Property keeps being built and expanded for how legal work happens. On a day-to-day basis, that takes a few different forms.

Keeping up with the law

Between new legislation, regulatory updates, duty rulings, form updates, exemptions, changing practice requirements, there is a lot to stay across.

A big part of my role is tracking those changes so our products stay accurate and practical. It is one thing to know what the law says. It is another to know what it means for a lawyer running a matter.

Turning legal knowledge into technology

I work closely with developers and the product team, giving practical input on what is being built.

That might mean walking through a leasing workflow, scoping a new product idea, or getting into the granular detail of how a calculation should behave. CPI lease adjustments and tiered water usage adjustment structures are good examples - the kind of thing that looks straightforward until you get into the specifics. Having someone who has run those matters in practice makes a real difference to how the product ends up working.

Working with AI

AI is a growing part of the role.

I draft and refine the prompts that steer AI away from generic answers and towards output a property lawyer can use with confidence. Then I test that output and think carefully about how legal knowledge can be used accurately in this type of technology.

Testing the details

Call me weird, but I do sometimes miss working through complex files and legal scenarios from start to finish. The good news is I still get to do that here, just differently. Quality Assurance (QA) and edge case testing offers me the complexity I enjoy. When something changes - a duty update, for instance - I run every scenario I can think of through our built-in calculators to confirm the software handles them properly before anyone relies on it.

Explaining the why and the how

Client work hasn't disappeared from this role. Webinars, events, seminars, and internal training are all part of the normal rhythm of the week. I often find that the conversations that come up in those sessions are often ones that only really make sense to have with another lawyer.

A different kind of legal career

What surprised me most about the switch was realising I could still use my lawyer brain, just pointed somewhere different. This role combines the creative side of product development with genuine legal thinking, and honestly the two go together better than I expected.

I still use the skills that practising law gave me: research, drafting, interpretation, attention to detail, problem-solving, judgement. I just use them to help build tools for the profession rather than to run matters within it.

For anyone with a property law background who is curious about legal technology, it is a great reminder that there is more than one way to use a law degree. If you're interested in joining LEAP, take a look at our careers page to find out more.