High-paying London criminal lawyer quits courtroom; enjoys life as professional dog walker, earns £400 daily

For years, Liz East was building the kind of career many people associate with ambition and professional success: criminal defence law in London. But behind the courtroom work and long hours, the 30-year-old from West Sussex was increasingly questioning whether the career she had worked so hard for was actually the life she wanted. Today, her workplace looks very different and has four legs. Liz East left her legal career and built a dog-walking and boarding business, a decision that initially surprised people around her but has since changed both her working hours and income. According to her account, she now looks after as many as 20 to 30 dogs during a typical day and says she earns thousands of pounds more each month than she did in her previous corporate work.

How a criminal lawyer left courtrooms and became a professional dog walker

East spent four years working in criminal defence after studying law for six years. Her job involved administrative work, court appearances, prison visits and meetings with clients. The demanding schedule gradually took its toll. She told People, via Kennedy News and Media, that criminal defence was “quite draining” and recalled regularly wondering whether the exhausting routine was going to define her entire adult life. The pressure was not limited to office hours.

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Liz East described the wider London work culture, including late evenings and expectations around socialising, as difficult to reconcile with the kind of personal life she wanted. Her turning point came partly from watching her husband run a dog-walking and boarding business. Unlike her own experience, he genuinely enjoyed going to work. That contrast prompted East to reconsider what she wanted from her career.

Liz East started small before making the big leap into professional dog walking

Liz East did not simply walk away from law and immediately build a thriving business. After leaving, she took shifts at a local pub to cover her expenses while developing her own customer base. Within a year, the business had grown substantially. She now reportedly organises four group walks a day, caring for between 20 and 30 dogs. At around £14 per hour per dog, her reported daily turnover can reach £300 to £400 — roughly Rs 38,500 to Rs 51,400. That figure represents reported turnover rather than take-home profit, an important distinction because a dog-walking business can involve costs such as transport, insurance, equipment, business expenses and taxes.

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A growing alternative to corporate life

East's experience also fits into a broader pattern of people reassessing what they want from work. In a 2025 Guardian feature, several people described leaving office-based careers for outdoor jobs. Former banker Steve Kell, for example, retrained as a countryside ranger and said being outdoors gave him a sense of freedom and reduced the workplace stress he had experienced previously.

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Another career changer profiled by the newspaper, Jay Rathod, moved from a mobile-phone company into horticulture and park work. He described feeling healthier and happier after the switch, despite initially taking a salary reduction. Pet care has also emerged as a source of supplementary income for people at different stages of life. The Times reported the case of Helen Simpson, who used dog sitting to generate additional income before accessing her pension.

Liz East now loves getting up and going to work

East says the financial change is only part of the story. She has faced comments from people who believe her years of legal education were wasted by switching to dog walking. Her response is that the skills gained during those years remain useful. More importantly, she says she now works roughly half the hours she once did while earning more each month.

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She has also stressed that dog walking should not be viewed simply as an easy route to money. It requires a genuine interest in animals and a willingness to spend much of the working day outdoors. Her law qualification remains available if she ever wants to return to the profession. For now, however, East appears content with a career that replaced courtrooms and legal files with muddy paths, vans and a very different set of clients.

When success means changing the definition

Liz East's story does not suggest that everyone should abandon a professional career for dog walking. Instead, it highlights a question increasingly being asked by workers across different industries: what is the value of a successful career if the lifestyle surrounding it becomes unsustainable? For East, the answer came through an unconventional career change. The surprising part is not simply that she left law — it is that the move appears to have given her something she had been missing: more control over her time, greater enjoyment of her working day and, by her account, a higher income as well.