Specialist profile
Chami Rupasinghe
Knowledge translation and practice specialist for law, policy and regulated professions
Chami Rupasinghe specialises in the point where regulated or expert information reaches practice: what a person needs to understand, decide and do; what a professional can safely say; and how to redesign the information, tools, processes and conversations so both sides can actually use them.
Get in touchRead Safe to Say, Safe to Reach, Safe to Use (PDF)
What I investigate
What happens after expert knowledge leaves the person or institution that produced it.
Whether people can understand what it means, judge what they can safely rely on, act on it and reach help without losing the qualifications, evidence, authority and professional boundaries that made the original information trustworthy.
Law after publication
What happens when law, policy and reform leave the page and meet real conditions. Where does the promise hold up? Where does it thin out? Who has to translate it?
Access, handover and human usability
What happens between lawyers, courts, services, agencies, health professionals, government, community organisations and technology. Who owns continuity? What information moves? What gets lost?
AI, trust and professional judgement
What should AI do? What should remain human? What needs verification? Where does responsibility sit? What happens when clients use AI before they reach a professional?
The future of the professions we rely on
When information becomes abundant, what are professionals actually for? Changing roles, professional judgement, supervision, emerging career paths and workforce sustainability.
What I notice
Follow the contradiction until the outcome makes sense.
- A service is “coordinated”, but the person tells their story six times.
- Legal information is technically accessible, but the person still cannot work out what to do.
- A protection exists, but the experience it was meant to change keeps happening.
We keep calling this X. But X may be the visible symptom. The underlying problem is Y.
The point is not to produce another diagnosis of what is broken. It is to understand the problem well enough to design a different ending.
What teams bring me in for
- Regulated-information translation Law, policy, research and regulated information rebuilt for real life, keeping the legal, evidence and professional limits that make it defensible.
- Practice tools Scripts, checklists, guides and resources that frontline professionals can actually use in the moment.
- Decision supports Tools that help a person or practitioner work out what applies, what to rely on and what to do next.
- Culturally responsive pathways Pathways and information that work across languages, cultures and communities, built from time in the field.
- Practitioner guidance Guidance on what a professional, service or AI tool can safely say, and where general information turns into advice.
- Capability Training your team, or your client's team, to do this themselves.
- Convening across silos Bringing together the lawyers, frontline workers, researchers, policymakers and people with lived experience who each hold part of the problem.
- Practice intelligence and investigation What is actually happening in the field right now, and the patterns found by putting different reports, inquiries and lived experience together.
Methods I’ve developed
Safe to Say, Safe to Reach, Safe to Use
An emerging framework for closing the Paper-to-Person Gap in regulated expertise so it can reach, matter to and safely help real people.
ConceptThe Paper-to-Person Gap
The gap between something being correct enough to issue and usable enough to live with.
Stress-testThe 4:47pm Test
Does it still work at 4:47pm on a Tuesday, under real conditions rather than ideal ones?
MethodThe Lejacie Investigation Method
Follow the contradiction until the outcome makes sense.
Research toolProfessional Archetypes
11 archetypes and 13 career families: the different forms professional contribution can take.
Emerging researchThe Future Professional Capability Map
The capabilities professionals need after “What is the law?”, “What does the policy say?” or “What does the evidence show?”
Current questions
- Q01Why does correct information fail to become usable help?
- Q02Where does responsibility sit when expertise reaches its boundary?
- Q03Who are public-serving systems implicitly designed for?
- Q04How do we know whether reform actually worked?
- Q05Who is benefiting from professional AI adoption?
- Q06What must professionals remain capable of knowing and checking?
- Q07What is expertise worth when information becomes abundant?
- Q08What capabilities does the future professional actually need?
- Q09Where is legal expertise being used outside traditional practice?
- Q10How do professions distribute opportunity, progression and authority?
In progress: The Letter Was Correct. She Still Missed the Deadline. · The Careful AI Went to the People Who Already Had Lawyers. · We Looked at What People With Law Degrees Actually Do With Difficult Problems. There Are 11 Types.
Selected work
Publications
- After the Law · No. 01 · 17 May 2026She Told Her Story Six Times. Every Service Was “Coordinated.”
- After the Law · No. 02 · 22 May 2026Australia Spent More Than $4 Billion on Domestic Violence Reform. More Women Are Being Killed Than in a Decade.
- After the Law · No. 03 · 11 June 2026She Left. Now She’s in Three Courts, and She Wants Out of Those Too.
- After the Law · No. 04 · 22 June 2026The Law Was Written to Be Followed, Not Understood (And Plain English Isn’t Going to Fix That)
- After the Law · No. 05 · 4 August 2026She Couldn’t Afford a Lawyer. The Court Punished Her for Using AI.
- After the Law · No. 06 · 17 August 2026AI Is Hallucinating the Justice System We Told People Exists
- Professionals From the Future · No. 01 · 28 May 2026The Legal Profession Left a Gap for 92% of Australians. So ChatGPT Became the Largest Legal Aid Provider. Now What?
- Paper · Draft v0.1Safe to Say, Safe to Reach, Safe to Use: An emerging framework for closing the Paper-to-Person Gap in regulated expertise so it can reach, matter to and safely help real people
- ExampleMaya’s pathway: one person, one life, twelve systems
Impact and practice
- Helped design multicultural education as part of Victoria’s $3.5 million affirmative consent reform.
- Contributed to the Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill 2025, tabled in Federal Parliament.
- Led government-funded, culturally responsive consent education and resource work with migrant and refugee communities.
- Developed multilingual parent and carer toolkits, staff professional development, disclosure-response materials, community leader briefings and child-safety education across culturally diverse communities, delivered in more than 40 languages with interpreters.
- Redeveloped and delivered legal education for frontline workers on legal issue spotting, family violence, child protection, information sharing, documentation and referral.
- Published in the Law Institute Journal.
Speaking and convening
Speaking
- Has spoken in the Federal and Victorian Parliaments on public-interest reform and the future of Australian institutions.
- Presented at the Law Institute of Victoria Legal Forum on the future of the profession.
- Speaker and judge at TEDxUniMelb Spark Tank.
- Member of the Justice Committee of Victorian Women Lawyers, the association for women in the Victorian legal profession.
- Volunteers with Law Wise Youth, making legal information accessible for young people.
Biography
A lawyer who speaks human.
Chami Rupasinghe is an admitted Australian lawyer (non-practising), educator and founder of Lejacie.
She works at the point where law, policy, professional expertise and technology have to become usable for real people and professionals under real conditions.
For almost a decade, she has worked in the space between what professionals know and what people can actually use, especially when the knowledge comes from law, legislation, policy or research.
Her work has repeatedly put her in the space between what an institution has technically provided and what a person or professional can actually do with it: translating law and policy into education, turning safeguarding and prevention frameworks into practice, working on access-to-justice questions, and examining what AI changes about how people reach and use professional expertise.
She has worked across access to justice, legal education, child safety, family violence prevention and public-interest systems, translating complex law, policy and professional knowledge into resources, training, pathways and practical tools for professionals and communities.
Chami is the founder of Lejacie and the developer of the Paper-to-Person Gap, Safe to Say, Safe to Reach, Safe to Use, and the 4:47pm Test.
Qualifications
- Admitted as an Australian lawyer by the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2022 (non-practising)
- Juris Doctor, Monash University
- Bachelor of Arts and Science, Monash University, majoring in criminology and psychology, with a minor in philosophy
- Graduate Diploma of Project Management, RMIT University
- Performance training, NIDA (the National Institute of Dramatic Art)
She does not provide individual legal advice or representation.