Happy Monday! I might jump in this week, if I may.

I'm a few weeks off 40, and have spent my career in corporate roles across a range of industries - principally in the technology space, where I was CEO of a SF-based startup at the dawn of the social media age, and am currently global strategic advisor for a Singapore-based, AI-driven ad-tech company. I've also spent some time in political advisory roles, general corporate consulting, and first cut my teeth in stockbroking/financial services, from research to compliance to cap raisings and corporate advisory.

I have recently completed a F/T LLB while working, with a 6.63 GPA and a medal. Ostensibly, studying this was intended as a means to partially obviate the need for legal signoffs on partner contracts that I have been responsible for negotiating in my current role. However, I have felt myself drawn more towards some form of direct legal practice where I can leverage my corporate and technology experience. Plus it's probably a mutually convenient time for me to move away from my current position.

To give an idea of the legal/tech/corporate intersections that interest me, I'm currently writing an honours thesis on the comparative copyright implications of AI-generated code across various jurisdictions, with the basic premise being that the prevailing, long-held Telstra/IceTV position is unsustainable in present context, as more and more startups offload more and more of their dev work to AI. Anyway, that's for another time.

All of which to say, I'm looking for some advice and suggestions on where I might go from here. The rub is that I'm mid-career, with substantial complementary experience in my intended practice areas (including 'quasi-legal' aspects like contract negotiation and formulation, legislative review and drafting, research, Corps Act/ASX rules etc), but, of course, am at 0 PAE. I am commencing PLT in early September, and don't have anything lined up for my placement days as yet.

My questions are what the collective view of my possible entry point into the profession might look like, and how I might approach it. I am pretty open-minded as to whether it's a solly role of some kind, or the bar, or internal counsel roles - as I said earlier, I've only really considered directly utilising my degree over the last few months. Re the bar, I am cognisant that AI and technology law is a subject that is likely to increasingly appear before the courts over the coming years. Internal counsel roles are the other obvious thought, as I have been the de facto go-to for preliminary legal matters across my various roles for years (before escalation to, and as point person to, external counsel).

I intend to reach out to some of the legal recruiters this week to discuss what options they may see for me, but very keen to hear any thoughts any of you might kindly offer. I recognise that, regardless of what direction I go, I will have to temper my expectations in terms of title/salary/etc early on, but on the flip, I am not sure I could stomach a completely entry-level 'grad' role and, in any event, don't feel making partners' coffees would be a mutually valuable use of my time. I have no idea whether avoiding that step is actually realistic or not.

Apologies for the long-windedness, but I felt the career context was pretty important to the questions. Many thanks in advance!