That seems to be a common knock against lawful alignments - not something I find. Most sophonts I can imagine (slaad being an obvious D&D-world exception) tend to follow patterns - IE, rules. This leads to 'lawful'behavior.
The other key factor to me is asking the question - what law? Whose laws are they following? One character I greatly enjoyed was a paladin class from an external, so-called "barbarian" society with a radically different belief system than the pseudo-roman society he found himself living within. While the character hewed closely to a set of laws, those laws didn't cleanly mesh with the greater society's interpretation, which led to fun conflicts and confrontations.
Drove the GM a little wild, but - they let me make the character. :D
I guess you are right and it's true that laws can be different. It's just that I prefer to not be limited by any laws. If some moral issue arises I prefer to think of what kind of answer my character would choose based on his personality, instead of what kind society he lives or lived in.
Usually I play either chaotic good or chaotic neutral.
grin I've played all the alignments, but I tend to default to neutral good or chaotic neutral, it seems, especially if I can't find an "edge" to play with like the aforementioned barbarian-paladin
In one of the campaigns, I play a character that is me transported to DnD world. In it I chose the chaotic neutral alignment.