Matt argues that the best lawyers are probably as intelligent as the best hackers, and they have been generating knowledge about the legal system their entire c

Matt argues that the best lawyers are probably as intelligent as the best hackers, and they have been generating knowledge about the legal system their entire careers, so they're going to be ahead of hackers in making predictions about how lawsuits will turn out. I don't see that he's arguing for credentials. Just that smart+experienced > smart+inexperienced. Some arguments can be judged by what they say. But ones that involve a prediction of how a complicated system will behave can't be judged by people without much experience. Most of the comments on the Lessig/DMCA story revolved around what precedent would be set by a lawsuit, which I don't feel confident to judge merely by reading the arguments.