The Zed Law founder also explains why he thinks “being a great lawyer isn’t enough”
Last week, Ryan Zahrai shared the story of how he went from medicine to law and why he ditched the typical law firm path. In the second part of this interview, the Zed Law founder encourages lawyers to challenge the definition of success and tells Australasian Lawyer what the firm is prioritising in the coming year.
What’s the biggest lesson you learned in your career and what advice can you give fellow lawyers about it?
The biggest lesson I’ve learned is this: being a great lawyer isn’t enough. If you’re not mindful of your energy, your systems, your team, and your business model, you’ll burn out or stagnate. Our profession trains us to prioritise perfection over pace, and individualism over collaboration. That doesn’t scale.
My advice to other lawyers - especially those thinking of stepping out or building something - is to question the assumption that success looks like hierarchy, or an office in the CBD, or a certain type of client list. Success is freedom, impact, and doing work that feels aligned. If your legal career is draining you more than it’s energising, something needs to change.
What should the profession focus more on?
Two things: clarity and context. First, we need to write and speak in ways that non-lawyers actually understand. Our job is not to show how clever we are (because often, it's not the case - our clients are the smartest people in the room); it’s to make complex issues actionable. Too many lawyers still hide behind long sentences, obscure definitions, and redundant risk disclaimers. Clients want confidence, not caveats.
Second, we need to remember that legal advice doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Clients don’t just want to know what they can or can’t do. They want to know what they should do, given their goals, constraints, market realities, and team dynamics. That means taking ownership of the advice we give and offering context, not just clauses.
What challenges are particularly pressing in the country’s legal industry?
There’s a growing gap between how law is practised and how business is done. While many clients are moving toward agility, innovation, AI adoption and decentralisation, large parts of the legal industry are still tied to legacy structures like hourly billing, rigid workflows, and a culture that equates long hours with commitment.
The next generation of lawyers is more values-driven, more tech-savvy, and more conscious of work-life boundaries. But many firms are still built on a model that rewards presenteeism and internal politics over client value and outcome-focused thinking. The whole PQE thing as a core determinant of fees charged does my head in.
If the legal industry doesn’t adapt - both culturally and structurally - we’ll continue to lose great talent to adjacent sectors or overseas. Worse, we’ll lose trust with clients who are already questioning the value of traditional legal services.
What are your thoughts on new technology and its impact on the legal profession?
Tech is forcing lawyers to confront what actually adds value. If a tool can draft, review or flag risk faster than a human, we need to lean into that, not resist it. But it also means lawyers need to double down on the things tech can’t do: nuanced judgment, commercial intuition, ethical guidance, and clear communication under pressure. Those are the differentiators now, not who knows the most precedents or templates.
At Zed, we use tech to automate and streamline wherever we can, but we’re equally conscious that clients still value the human layer. AI can process data. But it can’t build trust. The challenge is to integrate both without losing either.
What are you looking forward to the most in the coming year?
In a word: focus. In two more: sustainable scale.
Zed has grown quickly, and with that growth comes clarity about where we make the most impact. This year, I’m focused on cracking the mid-tier market, clients who are stuck between the exorbitant cost of big firms and the limitations of small ones. They’re often dealing with bloated internal processes, delayed advice, and firms that still haven’t invested properly in technology or systems. We’re building a model that strips out that bureaucracy, delivers advice faster, and integrates seamlessly with how these businesses operate today, not how law firms operated ten years ago.
