i worded that poorly (see, that's why i'm not a lawyer! =). i was intending to differentiate (breadth of) skills versus knowledge. lawyerly technical skills, a

i worded that poorly (see, that's why i'm not a lawyer! =). i was intending to differentiate (breadth of) skills versus knowledge. lawyerly technical skills, as i see it, is the different ways of constructing, destructing, and rebutting arguments, along with presentational skills (verbal and written) and related strategies. so i see filling out forms and drawing up contracts as a form of argumentation--in that case, the preemption of common and likely future arguments. so then, lawyerly technical skills are relatively enumerable. on the other hand, law has a vast corpus of knowledge (e.g., precedent) that no one person can master in a lifetime. in contrast, the technical skills to imagine and create physical (and virtual) objects, or to understand and modify biological systems, are vast and relatively innumerable (as is what's known and unknown in those realms). that's not to say anything about the intelligence or creativity of practitioners of any of these professions, as they all benefit from those qualities.