What Kind of Site Is thechain.lawyer?
It is the official site of Attorney Lee Young-nam's law office in Sujeong-gu, Seongnam. He worked as a prosecutor for 21 years, served as Deputy Chief Prosecutor at both the Seoul Central and Gwangju District Prosecutors' Offices, and handled more than 30,000 cases. He holds a psychology degree from Seoul National University and recently completed Yonsei University's Blockchain & Web3 course and its AI Leadership program.
The site's taglines layer two identities on one screen: 'Veteran intuition combined with cutting-edge AI,' 'Investigation is science; advocacy is art,' and 'The Link between Code and Law.' Setting the axis of prosecutorial investigative experience alongside the axis of AI and blockchain is the character of this site.
It is organized into Philosophy, Practice Areas, Blockchain, Career, News, and Location sections, and supports three languages—Korean, English, and Chinese. The office is on Sanseong-daero in Sujeong-gu, Seongnam (a 5-minute walk from Exit 6 of Dandae-Ogori Station on Seoul Subway Line 8), and the main number is 031-736-4345.
What Does the AI Consultation Agent Do, and How Far?
The site's central feature is AI legal consultation. A visitor picks a consultation topic and writes in their situation; the AI agent reads it, classifies which case type it falls under, and lays out the issues and initial risks on a first pass. This is not the lawyer's final opinion—it is the 'context organizing' that precedes the lawyer's judgment.
Why hand this step to AI? In legal consultation, what eats the most human time is not the hard judgment but the repetition in front of it—figuring out what kind of case it is, pulling out the relevant issues, deciding how urgent it is. That is close to a routine task with fairly fixed answers. Once AI strips that repetition away, the lawyer only has to judge on top of the organized context.
The limits and accountability are stated plainly. The AI's first-pass result is a reference, not a confirmed legal opinion. Final judgment and responsibility rest with the lawyer. The point of attaching AI is not to have it produce the answer, but to clear the front end so the person remains exactly where judgment is required. This consultation feature is built on Azure OpenAI.
What It Covers—From Criminal Law to Blockchain
The practice areas are broad. Criminal defense and corporate risk (investigation and seizure response, internal misconduct, antitrust, election and political-finance matters), asset crime (embezzlement, breach of trust, fraud; asset recovery; tracing money flows), and finance and AI (investment disputes, compliance, regulatory analysis).
It also covers labor and elections (electoral-law violations, labor-management disputes), school and digital violence (school-violence committee response, deepfakes, illegal filming, online defamation and cyberstalking), and real estate and asset planning (reconstruction and redevelopment disputes, property transactions, trusts for succession, disability, and business succession).
Blockchain and digital assets are a distinct axis. It handles VASP (virtual-asset service provider) registration, AML/KYC policy design, coin fraud, NFT compliance, and smart-contract review, and the services are packaged as the Genesis Pack (VASP registration, AML/KYC, terms), the Consensus Retainer (monthly counsel, regulatory monitoring, contract review), and the Defense Node (emergency criminal and administrative response). The tagline 'The Link between Code and Law' becomes concrete here.
Why Augmentation, Not Replacement
The more specialized the professional, the easier it is to defer adoption with 'AI can't do my job.' But what AI actually strips away is not the expert's judgment—it is the repetition in front of it. A professional's edge is not the volume of knowledge but the speed and accuracy of judgment, and when AI handles the intake, classification, and first-pass organizing that lead up to that judgment, the quality of the judgment stays the same or even rises.
In this structure the person does not disappear; they remain exactly at the point of judgment. Keeping a person inside the automation loop to decide is called HITL (Human In The Loop). The AI does not finalize the consultation result; the person judges on top of it and takes responsibility.
The key is sequence and boundary. When the person who knows their craft best draws the line—what to hand to AI and what to keep in human hands—AI becomes augmentation, not replacement. Adoptions where the boundary is outsourced tend to spin idle; adoptions where the line is drawn by one's own hand actually run.
How Other Professionals Can Apply This
This structure is not for lawyers alone. It applies to any profession where 'consult → judge → take responsibility' repeats—insurance planners, tax and accounting, medicine, consulting. The common pattern is this: a client writes in their situation, AI classifies the type and organizes the issues and risks on a first pass, and the expert judges on top of that and carries final responsibility.
Getting started is simple. First, pick one front-end task that repeats every day in your work—intake, type classification, a first-pass review of a quote or requirement. If that repetition has a largely fixed answer and eats a lot of human time, it is your first automation target. Look not at 'the hardest task' but at 'the most frequently repeated task with a fixed answer.'
Next, always keep a human judgment gate on top of the AI's first-pass result. Require it to cite accurate grounds, and route sensitive decisions through human confirmation. Clearing the front end while keeping judgment in human hands—that is the practical starting point of AX (AI Transformation) for professionals.