I left my dream job as a trial attorney and pivoted into AI at age 40. It showed me the power of leaving my comfort zone.

• Aurora Bryant's childhood dream was to become a lawyer. She went on to work for the DOJ.
• Bryant became interested in how technology could be used to make lawyers' jobs more efficient.
• She left law at 40 to move to an AI company. It taught her about stepping outside her comfort zone.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Aurora Bryant, 40, the senior legal data intelligence lead at Relativity. She's based in New York. Her former and current employment have been verified by Business Insider. This piece has been edited for length and clarity.

I didn't expect my career to pan out this way.

When I started reading John Grisham novels late into the night in fifth grade, I knew that I wanted to become a lawyer. I was drawn to the sense of justice in those books.

I never strayed from my goal. I attended law school and spent 15 years in the profession, including a decade at the US Department of Justice.

Now, at 40, I'm no longer practicing law. Instead, I'm the senior legal data intelligence lead at Relativity, where we use AI to solve complex legal challenges.

Pivoting to AI was scary but exciting. I'm glad I did it.

Working at the DOJ as a trial attorney was my dream job

I studied economics at Tulane University in New Orleans while working as a file clerk at a local law firm, then graduated from law school at Northwestern University in Chicago in 2010.

After working for over a year at the law firm in New Orleans, where I had previously worked as a law clerk, and then at a nonprofit, I joined a civil rights organization in New Orleans in 2011. There, I investigated and litigated housing and lending discrimination cases in Louisiana.

In 2015, I landed my dream job as a trial attorney for the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and relocated to Washington, D.C., where I stayed for just over a decade.

The DOJ had a nationwide mandate, unlike my previous jobs, so my work touched people's lives all over the country. It was a fulfilling and rewarding role, and my favorite part was bringing relief to victims of unlawful discrimination.

My least favourite part was the limited resources. Every workplace has constraints, but at the DOJ, we didn't have access to certain modern technologies we needed to be more efficient, which often created bottlenecks. My frustration motivated me to explore how new technologies were being applied within law.

From knowing little about AI to working with it

Even three years ago, I knew very little about AI beyond headlines about lawyers filing briefs filled with fake cases. It was baffling, as lawyers put our reputations behind what we submit to the court.

As part of my work as a trial attorney, I got involved with various groups within the DOJ focused on eDiscovery, which is the process of collecting, reviewing, and producing electronically stored information that's relevant to a legal case, such as evidence from computers or phones.

Through these groups, I started attending conferences in 2018. In recent years, I've observed at these conferences how AI is being applied within the practice of law.

In 2023, I transitioned from being a trial attorney to a newly created position as an eLitigation Counsel, where I developed templates, guides, and best practices to streamline eDiscovery work in the Civil Rights Division.

Frustrated that I couldn't bring in all the technologies we needed, partly due to limited resources, it became clear to me earlier this year that my future wasn't at the DOJ. I began considering my next steps.

I was offered my role at Relativity in mid-2025 and made the jump to working in legal technology full time.

Just as it was important 20 years ago to learn how to use a computer for daily tasks, I believe it will become equally important to be able to leverage AI. As technology evolves, we have to evolve with it.

At Relativity, I collaborate with data scientists, engineers, product leaders, designers, and customers to ensure that our generative AI solutions are developed in ways that meet the needs of attorneys and case teams. I'm learning new things every day. I even wrote a bit of code the other week.

Understand your goals, passions, and what you bring to a role

I've learned that before deciding what's next, you have to understand your goals, what you enjoy, and how you can best leverage your experience. I knew that my goal was to find new ways to do innovative work that would make a difference in my industry.

I draw on my 15 years of experience practicing law to help optimize Relativity's products.

I've increasingly seen the importance of harnessing and leveraging technology for the success of investigations and litigations. When I took the eLitigation role, I could see that bringing solutions to case teams working to advance civil rights was more sustainable and satisfying to me than being in an adversarial posture in litigation every day.

While it was a scary career move, it was also empowering to be able to lean fully into innovation.

I've learned that it's important to be prepared to step outside your comfort zone. It's hard to say "don't be afraid to take risks," because lawyers are usually risk-averse. But I didn't see my career pivot as a risk; I saw it as an exciting opportunity to try something new. I'm developing a whole new area of expertise.

One of the most exciting things about this job is that I don't always know what's coming next. Thankfully, I love to learn new things, and I'm excited for whatever the future holds, whether it's learning to code a little more or something else entirely.