Job title: Head of Legal Advice
Reports to: Chief Executive Officer
Direct reports: Three Senior Legal Managers
Contract: Permanent, 35 hours per week,
Location: Hybrid working in London office in Kings Cross 2–3 days/week plus homeworking
Salary: circa £70,000
About LEASE
The Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE) is a statutory public body and Arm’s Length Body of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. We provide free, expert, impartial advice on leasehold and commonhold matters to consumers in England and Wales - leaseholders, park homeowners, residents’ associations, MPs and professionals working in the sector. Around five million households live in leasehold properties in England and Wales. Our advice helps them understand their rights, navigate complex legal questions, and engage confidently with one of the most consequential reforms to residential property law in a generation. With over 1.4 million annual website visitors and tens of thousands of direct enquiries, we are the country’s most-used independent source of free legal advice on leasehold. Our Three-Year Strategy 2026–2029 will set out an ambitious direction: by 2029, LEASE will be digital-first, ethically AI-enabled, insight-led, respected by government and trusted by consumers.
Why this role matters now
LEASE is at a pivotal moment. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 is being switched on through secondary legislation across 2026. The Draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill is in pre-legislative scrutiny, and government has set a clear direction for commonhold to become the default tenure for new flats. At the same time, the way consumers find and consume legal information is being transformed by AI, and the expectations placed on a small public body to deliver a modern, scalable, personalised advice service have never been higher. Our advice service is changing fundamentally as a result. We are launching an AI chatbot, embedding a new CRM as the backbone of our written-advice pathway, redesigning how consumers reach us across digital, written, live-chat and phone channels - releasing capacity for complex casework, vulnerable consumers and the content that shapes national understanding of reform.
Role purpose and Key Responsibilities
The Head of Legal Advice is a new senior leadership role, reporting to the Chief Executive and sitting on the Leadership Team. The post holder will provide strategic and operational leadership across the Legal Advisory function and will lead the modernisation of LEASE’s advice model. The role spans four interlocking areas. The post holder will work through the Senior Legal team, and with the Business team, Digital Transformation team, the Data, Insights and Consumer Research team - but they will be the single accountable senior owner across the below.
1. Leadership of the Legal Advisory Function
• Lead the Legal Advisory function as a coherent service, setting direction, priorities and ways of working in line with the Three-Year Strategy and Business Plan.
• Directly line-manage the Senior Legal Managers, with overall accountability for the wider legal advisory teams (senior legal advisers, legal advisers and triage officers)
• Set clear objectives, KPIs and OKRs for the function; reduce median written-advice response times; lift first-contact resolution and CSAT against the targets in the Business Plan.
• Contribute to LEASE’s collective leadership as a member of the Leadership Team, including corporate planning, risk management, finance and external representation.
2. Advice Quality, Assurance and Professional Standards
• Own the LEASE standard for free legal advice across all channels - written, telephone, live-chat, webinar and AI-assisted - ensuring it is accurate, impartial, accessible, plain-English and proportionate.
• Design, implement and maintain a robust legal quality assurance framework - peer review, audit sampling, escalation routes and consumer-feedback loops - and report on it transparently to the Leadership Team and Board.
• Strengthen consistency, productivity and continuous professional development across the legal advisory teams, including a structured legal training, accreditation and CPD programme.
• Set protocols for complex cases and vulnerable-consumer escalation; reserve and strengthen phone advice for the cases where it matters most.
• Establish and curate the legal knowledge base that underpins consistent advice - current with legislation, secondary regulations, case law and government policy - and ensure it is the single source of truth used by both human advisers and AI tools.
• Identify, manage and report on legal-advice risk; ensure professional indemnity, regulatory and statutory obligations are met; work with the Legal Lead and external counsel where needed.
3. Digital Transformation, AI, CRM and Service Redesign
•Lead the legal contribution to LEASE’s shift from a transactional call-centre model to a digital-first, personalised advice offer, working closely with the Transformation Lead and Senior Tech Lead.
• Act as the senior legal owner of the LEASE AI chatbot, AI-assisted triage and AI-assisted drafting tools - including content sign-off, accuracy testing, safeguards, escalation rules and the human-in-the-loop model - in line with the LEASE AI Use Policy, the UK AI Playbook and Cabinet Office assurance principles.
• Lead the Legal Advisory function’s adoption of the new CRM as the structured backbone of the written-advice pathway; ensure consistent case management, routing, reporting and end-to-end measurement.
• Work with service designers, content designers and product managers to redesign written, live-chat, webinar and phone advice journeys around user need; ensure park-homes, shared-ownership and Welsh consumer journeys receive proper attention.
• Embed the move from a time-bound digital Change Programme into a continuous-improvement operating model.
• Champion WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility, Cyber Essentials Plus, GovAssure and the Algorithm Transparency Reporting Standard within the Legal Advisory function.
4. Data, Insight, Policy and Redress
• Work with the Head of Data, Insights and Consumer Research to ensure legal-advisory data feeds quarterly Insight Reports, the annual State of Leasehold and Commonhold report and the public Impact Dashboard.
• Lead LEASE’s legal contribution to government consultations, calls for evidence and pre-legislative scrutiny.
• Lead the legal contribution to LEASE’s redress-navigation work, supporting the Minister’s 2026 priority for LEASE to play a coordinating role across the redress landscape.
• Represent LEASE’s legal voice with MHCLG and other government departments, regulators (Building Safety Regulator, Housing Ombudsman), professional bodies (RICS, TPI, IRPM, Law Society) and consumer groups.
• Support the Digital Learning and Training Lead to ensure LEASE’s public Training Hub and accredited professional training are legally rigorous, current and credible.
Essential Experience, Skills and Knowledge
•Demonstrable experience leading or significantly influencing a legal, advice, regulatory, ombudsman or consumer-facing advisory function - including line management of senior professionals and accountability for service quality at scale.
• A clear track record of leading or co-leading the transformation of a complex advisory or advice service - for example moving from a paper or call-centre model to a digital-first, AI-enabled or CRM-backed model.
• Experience designing or operating a quality framework, peer review, audit, performance management or complaints regime in a consumer-facing or regulated environment.
• A working understanding of how AI, large language models, CRM systems, workflow tools and structured data can support - and where they constrain - advice delivery; the judgement to know where automation helps and where human expertise is non-negotiable.
• Confidence and credibility partnering with service designers, product managers, data analysts and engineers; able to translate advisory requirements into actionable product and service decisions.
• Either substantive knowledge of leasehold, residential property or consumer-protection law and policy, or the demonstrated ability to acquire deep specialist domain understanding quickly.
Desirable Experience
• A legal qualification (solicitor, barrister, chartered legal executive or equivalent), legal advice leadership experience, or equivalent experience in a legally complex advice, regulatory, ombudsman, public service or consumer environment.
Benefits
The post is open to full time, flexible working and job-share applicants. Other benefits include:
• 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays
• One professional subscription paid
• 10% non-contributory pension
• A friendly and supportive culture
Information on Role
LEASE is committed to appointing on experience, seeking candidates from a diverse range of backgrounds and taking full account of equal opportunities. Applications are particularly welcome from women, minority ethnic and disabled candidates who are underrepresented at this level in public life.
Working Pattern
The working pattern for the role is hybrid, currently combining homeworking with regular attendance at our London base in Kings Cross on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Attendance is also required at staff away days. Additional flexibility on office attendance may be available to those living outside the Southeast subject to business needs.
Security and Right to Work
Successful candidates must pass a Disclosure and Barring Service check. Candidates must have the right to live and work in the UK. They will be subject to UK immigration requirements.
How to apply
Please send a CV with a covering letter with a statement setting out how you meet the job specification criteria. Application closing date: 30th June 2026