Overview
Head of Legal Practice Jobs in Sheffield, England, United Kingdom at LEXcelerate
Title: Head of Legal Practice
Company: LEXcelerate
Location: Sheffield, England, United Kingdom
About LEXcelerate
Remortgaging in the UK takes 6 to 8 weeks. We know it can take less than 2 weeks.
LEXcelerate is an AI-first conveyancing business. We are applying lean manufacturing principles and serious AI engineering to a process that has barely changed in decades, and we are building a CLC-regulated practice to deliver it.
We are starting with remortgaging, the segment where speed matters most and where the case for a better way is clearest. But that is the beachhead, not the destination. From there we will move into the buying and selling space, and this role is about helping to build the future of conveyancing in general.
We are not a legacy firm bolting AI onto old ways of working. We are designing the practice from a blank sheet of paper: the workflows, the technology, the client experience and the compliance framework are all being built together, from first principles, for the way conveyancing should work today.
The founding team combines deep legal sector leadership, including the former UK Managing Partner of a global law firm, with a proven AI product engineering capability through Yorkshire AI Labs. The business is backed and governed by an experienced board including a Non-Executive Director with a track record of building and scaling technology companies.
The role
The Head of Legal Practice is a statutory role under the Legal Services Act 2007 and a designated role within our CLC licence. You will be individually approved by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers and will carry personal responsibility for the practice’s compliance with its regulatory obligations.
But this is much more than a compliance appointment. As one of the first senior hires in the business, you will help define what a modern, technology-led conveyancing practice looks like. You will work directly with the founders and the engineering team to ensure that compliance, professional standards and client protection are designed into our systems and workflows from the outset, not audited in afterwards.
You will be the practice’s conscience and its regulatory anchor: the person who ensures that as we move fast, we never compromise on the standards that clients, lenders and the regulator rightly expect.
Key responsibilities
Statutory and Regulatory
• Discharge the statutory duties of the HoLP under the Legal Services Act 2007, including ensuring compliance with the terms of the practice’s licence and the CLC’s regulatory arrangements
• Report any failure to comply with regulatory obligations to the CLC as required
• Act as the primary point of contact with the CLC and manage the ongoing regulatory relationship
• Maintain and develop the practice’s compliance framework, policies and procedures, including AML, client care, complaints handling, conflicts, data protection and professional indemnity arrangements
• Oversee the practice’s approach to client money in conjunction with the Head of Finance and Administration, including our Third Party Managed Account arrangements
• Ensure all fee earners and staff are appropriately supervised, trained and competent
Practice leadership
• Provide technical conveyancing leadership across the practice, acting as the senior authority on legal and procedural questions
• Own the quality assurance framework for legal work, including file review and audit processes
• Lead complaints handling and remediation, and use the outputs to drive continuous improvement
• Contribute to lender panel applications and the management of lender relationships from a compliance and quality perspective
Building the practice
• Work with the engineering team to embed regulatory requirements, risk controls and professional standards directly into our AI-assisted workflows
• Help define where AI can safely accelerate the process and where human professional judgement must remain, and codify those boundaries
• Contribute to the design of the client and introducer experience so that speed never comes at the expense of clarity, consent or protection
• Support recruitment and development of the conveyancing team as the practice scales
About you
Essential
• Licensed conveyancer, solicitor or other authorised person eligible for CLC approval as a HoLP
• Significant post-qualification experience in residential conveyancing, including strong technical knowledge of the remortgage process, lender requirements and the CQS/lender panel landscape, with the breadth to lead the practice into sale and purchase work as we grow
• Experience in a compliance leadership role (HoLP, COLP, compliance officer or equivalent) or demonstrable readiness to step into one
• Detailed working knowledge of the CLC or SRA regulatory framework, AML obligations and client money rules
• A clear-eyed, constructive view of AI in legal services: genuinely excited by what it makes possible, and rigorous about where its limits lie
• The confidence to be the person in the room who says no when no is the right answer
Desirable
• Prior experience as an approved HoLP or COLP
• Experience in a high-volume or process-driven conveyancing environment
• Experience working alongside product or engineering teams, or in a legal technology business
• Experience of a practice start-up, regulatory authorisation process or new licence application
What we offer
• A genuine ground-floor opportunity: help build a regulated practice from first principles rather than inherit someone else’s playbook
• Participation in the company option pool
• Direct access to and influence with the founding team and board
• The chance to shape how AI is used responsibly in conveyancing, and to set a standard the rest of the market will follow
