Meet the people of LawY: Freda Chang

A non-linear journey into legal tech

My career has definitely not been a straight line. I started out studying law, drifted into consulting, rediscovered myself through design, and eventually found my way into full stack engineering in legal tech. It sounds chaotic when I say it all together, but looking back, every step fits perfectly.

I never planned to become a lawyer, a designer, or an engineer. I chose law mostly because I was drawn to the challenge. Toward the end of my degree, I realised the day-to-day reality of legal work did not suit me though the practical skills and in-depth perspective the degree gave me have continued to be useful.

After finishing my commerce and law degree, consulting felt like the most logical next step. While the work was challenging and varied, there was still a sense that I hadn't quite found the path forward. When COVID arrived, I finally had space to reflect on what I actually enjoyed. The answer was art and design.

So I quit my job, studied design, worked in a digital media agency, moved into web design, and eventually realised that learning to code would give me far more creative freedom. That path ultimately led me to full stack engineering, and eventually to LawY.

Why legal tech and why LawY

The truth is that entering legal tech was a matter of opportunity. My law background gave me a natural entry point into an industry where I understood the context, even though I had never practised. For the first time, I saw a path that connected everything I had learned with everything I had grown passionate about.

Working with lawyers is a rewarding extension of everything that has come before. I understand what lawyers care about, how they evaluate information, and why accuracy matters so much in their workflows. Even though I am not a practising lawyer, I can connect with their needs and design features that feel intuitive and trustworthy.

How a law degree shapes product thinking

Having a law degree influences how I think about product decisions. Lawyers care deeply about primary sources, reliability and clarity. A major part of designing for them is not only what the AI says but how it communicates the information, because tone affects trust but it should not replace transparency.

“Tone matters, but transparency matters more. Rather than relying on answers that simply sound authoritative, we focus on giving lawyers the tools to verify information easily. Large language models can be overly persuasive, so our goal is to make self-verification effortless and ensure accuracy is not assumed just because something sounds right.”

The underlying response could be the same as any general AI model, but phrasing it in a legal style and pairing that with built-in verification tools creates something lawyers can rely on. Much of my work involves shaping the voice of LawY so it sounds like a tool built specifically for lawyers.

Design and engineering working together

I've thoroughly enjoyed bringing my design background to the engineering team, and I feel like I've been able to make a real difference. Lawyers are time-poor and don't have the bandwidth to navigate new complex, multi-layered software. Many legacy legal products still feel cluttered and difficult to navigate.

At LawY, we chose the opposite approach.

We focused on a clean interface with complexity handled in the background. For example, instead of requiring lawyers to complete different kinds of legal research or drafting tasks within a single conversation. LawY aims to determine the context of the question and provide the most tailored responses.This reduces friction and makes the workflow feel natural.

The combination of UX thinking and engineering has shaped many of the decisions that make LawY simple, modern, and easy to use.

Features that changed everything

The introduction of Deep Research was a turning point. It dramatically improved the depth and quality of responses. Instead of broad summaries, the AI now performs multi-step reasoning and explores information more thoroughly.

Deep Research delivers fast, AI-generated legal analysis with the option for a qualified lawyer to review and verify the output. The AI conducts the initial research and drafting, and a human lawyer validates the reasoning and conclusions. The result is reliable, high-quality research  delivered without the time and cost of traditional methods. If I had access to a tool like this during my consulting years, it would have saved countless hours of manual work.

Another important improvement was enabling flexible matter creation. In the early days, LawY was tied closely to the LEAP matter structure, which created friction in daily use. Removing that limitation made the experience much more intuitive. This small yet powerful tweak made it easy for quick cross-jurisdictional research work or elegantly double checking a legal principle in an area of law you don't cover often.

What lawyers tell us

We receive a broad mix of feedback. Some lawyers love LawY from the very first use. Others are quick to point out what they do not like. The most consistent concern is accuracy.

I completely understand why. Lawyers are trained to be sceptical. Once trust is lost, it is difficult to earn back. Accuracy shapes almost every strategic decision we make. Deep Research helped us progress, but there is still more to do. This is where our 'lawyer-in-the-loop' feature also adds that added assurance for lawyers wanting the most accurate starting point for their legal work.

Why some firms move slowly with AI

Security concerns are the biggest barrier. Many of the firms we work with are small or medium sized and maintain close relationships with clients. Because they do not always know how AI works, they worry about where their data goes.

One common misconception is that using AI means their client information is shared publicly. That is not the case. Our data is isolated and cannot be used by to train models. Even so, trust takes time.

“Eventually the benefits of AI will become too significant to ignore. Adoption will become essential.”

At LawY we take privacy, security and transparency seriously. Our Trust Centre outlines how we protect client data, ensure compliance, and maintain ethical standards across all our services. You can review our full policies including data handling, security protocols and service commitments on our Trust Centre here: https://trust.lawy.ai/

What excites me about the future

I am especially interested in the rise of legal agents. These are AI systems designed to perform specific legal tasks end to end. They will require a high level of trust, and it will be fascinating to see how quickly they evolve and how readily lawyers will adopt them.

What feature would you most like to build?

If I could build anything with no constraints, I would strengthen the availability of full primary source citations inside LawY. Lawyers want to know exactly where information comes from. They want footnotes, case links, legislative references, and clear documentation. There are obvious challenges for bringing this idea to life but it is the feature I would build immediately if I could.

My hope for the next generation of lawyers

My hope for the next generation of lawyers is that technology improves access to justice. Too many people struggle to get timely, affordable legal support, and reducing the administrative burden on lawyers is one way to change that.

AI can handle the repetitive work that slows everything down, allowing lawyers to focus on what actually requires their judgment: helping clients through difficult situations and applying legal principles to complex, nuanced facts.

The aim isn’t to avoid hard work. It’s to make sure lawyers can spend their time on the parts of the profession that really matter.

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