MiAI Law has launched an artificial intelligence product for lawyers that it says can show its reasoning step by step, following a AU$2 million funding round completed in five days.
The Sydney-based company was founded by practising barrister Laina Chan. The product is positioned as a legal research and analysis system that draws on case law and legislation, and sets out the path from source materials to conclusion in a structured format.
Legal technology suppliers and law firms have added generative AI tools to research and drafting products over the past two years. Lawyers and regulators have raised concerns about false citations and unsupported assertions in AI outputs. MiAI Law is targeting that issue with an approach that emphasises traceability and review.
Chan said she developed the system after finding that existing tools focused on search and retrieval rather than analysis. “There was no AI system that embedded legal reasoning into its architecture,” she said. “Law is not just retrieval. It is reasoning from facts and principles. MiAI Law is built to follow that same discipline.”
Funding round
MiAI Law raised AU$2 million from investors, family, staff and angel supporters. Named backers include Wai Ling Chan; Mei-Shan Tan, former general counsel for Citibank SAR Hong Kong and China; and David Ioannidis, former head of fixed income trading at JP Morgan Australia.
Ioannidis said the product is more than a thin interface over a large language model. “I invested in MiAi Law because it was not designed as a superficial large language model wrapper. Laina’s ambition was to build an AI-native legal platform from first principles using foundation models as components within a broader reasoning system, not as the product itself,” he said. “More importantly, Laina’s combined legal and technical depth as well as her refusal to compromise on the objective were key factors (for my investment). Her relentless resolve materially increases the probability that her vision becomes a reality.”
MiAI Law did not disclose a valuation or the size of individual contributions. It also did not detail how it plans to use the capital beyond product development and commercial rollout.
How it works
MiAI Law describes its core function as reasoning from primary legal sources and making each analytical step visible. Rather than only retrieving cases or generating short summaries, the system links authorities and shows how it reaches conclusions.
Chan said the output format is designed for verification. “Most tools can locate a case or statute,” she said. “But they don’t show you why it matters, how it connects, or where the reasoning may fail. MiAI Law delivers transparent, methodical reports that lawyers can verify and test.”
The system also flags uncertainty where the law is unclear or incomplete, aiming to reduce the risk of speculative answers in legal work. The approach reflects a wider debate in professional services about when generative systems should refuse to answer or limit responses to source-backed statements.
Audit tools
Alongside research, MiAI Law includes features it calls LawCheck and AppealCheck. LawCheck is described as an auditing layer that checks legal propositions and supporting authorities, focusing on misstated principles and fabricated citations in both AI-generated and human-generated work.
AppealCheck is presented as a tool that identifies potential appealable error and prepares a draft notice of appeal for review by a lawyer. MiAI Law also lists contract review among its features for first-pass analysis of agreements.
Chan framed the product as a supplement to professional decision-making rather than a substitute. “AI can support judgment, but it must never obscure it,” she said. “MiAI Law is designed to strengthen professional reasoning, not replace it.”
Early users
MiAI Law said it tested the product in beta with lawyers ranging from small practices to international firms and barristers’ chambers. Several legal practitioners provided endorsements citing time savings in preliminary research and the ability to explore lines of argument.
Former High Court Justice Michael Kirby described the direction of travel for the profession.
“MiAI Law is the way of the future and it is great to see an Australian at the forefront”, said Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG, Former High Court Justice.
Danny Feller SC, senior counsel at 2 Selborne Chambers, said the product had reduced his early-stage research time. “If ever there was a ‘killer app’ for lawyers that delivers, MiAI Law would have to be it. It transcends traditional legal research as it doesn’t just find information; it synthesises it. It has cut my preliminary research time substantially and uncovered lines of argument I might have otherwise missed. It is, without exaggeration, AI for lawyers on steroids, and will become an essential part of a lawyer’s toolkit,” he said.
Other testimonials came from Ian Percy of Owen Dixon Chambers West, Anderson Wong of Aristo Lawyers, Hollia Lam of LamCo, Jonathan Hyde of New Chambers, and Nawras Alamarat of United Engineering Construction. Several compared the experience with established research platforms and highlighted the ability to interrogate issues, trace reasoning to sources, and review contracts.
MiAI Law is entering a market where established legal publishers and specialist technology providers are adding AI features to long-standing research databases. It is positioning its reasoning and auditing functions as differentiators as law firms seek productivity gains while managing risks around accuracy, confidentiality and professional responsibility.
Chan said the system grew out of her own practice and is now being offered more broadly. “MiAI Law is built to follow that same discipline,” she said.
