Sophie Leppington

Sophie is a solicitor in the Dispute Resolution team with a primary focus on life sciences patent litigation. Sophie has a strong understanding of the life sciences sector, having previously qualified and worked as a pharmacist. Prior to joining Carpmaels & Ransford in 2024, Sophie spent almost four years at a top-tier full-service law firm in London, where she trained and practiced as a solicitor in their intellectual property disputes team. She has advised on a range of intellectual property issues including patent, trade mark, copyright and passing off disputes as well as brand protection strategies. She has experience of litigation in the High Court and the Court of Appeal in the UK. Sophie also has in-house experience, having spent six months on secondment to a major media and entertainment company, where she advised on a range of commercial and intellectual property matters.

During her MPharm degree, Sophie received a first-class award for a laboratory-based study on the “Molecular Pharmacology of Ligands at the Human Dopamine D1 Receptor”. In her previous career as a community pharmacist, Sophie trained to administer travel and flu vaccinations, managed medication for several high dependency care homes and alongside this regularly worked for an online health-tech pharmacy.

Before commencing her legal training contract, Sophie worked for the Infected Blood Inquiry, which is an independent public statutory inquiry examining why individuals in the UK were given infected blood and/or infected blood products. Sophie’s pharmaceutical knowledge greatly assisted her work leading teams of paralegals on several disclosure projects.

Outside of work, Sophie enjoys skiing, long distance running and spending time with her two cats.