The sophomoricism in this thread is one of the things that irked me about tech and made me go into law.
I'm going back into tech because the culture of law is much more broken and repellant, but one thing I can say in favor of lawyers over engineers is that, IME at least, they are overall much more willing to recognize when they aren't well-versed in other fields, including both substantively and in terms of mental models.
> [Lawyers] are overall much more willing to recognize when they aren't well-versed in other fields, including both substantively and in terms of mental models.
That's a refreshing perspective. Any inkling as to why? I'm guessing prolonged exposure to the adversarial process would cause lawyers to be a bit more introspective about the limits of their knowledge, but are there other reasons, too?
1. Lawyers must really internalize an attitude of recognizing the limits of what they know. They have to speak precisely. They can't make claims they can't substantiate. They can't speculate. Sometimes lawyering involves making a lot of assessments of who knows precisely how much. It also involves dealing personally with a wide range of other subject-matter experts. So what you said about the adversarial process is correct, I think.
2. Many (not all) engineers seem to downplay non-STEM qualitative thinking. On phone, so hard to fully explain, but I think part of it is that they think that because what they do is specialized and hard, other stuff is easy. Lawyers are arrogant too, but in different ways.
Maybe non-STEM stuff is easier, but it has its own complications, and I think engineers are not inclined to see them.
Would like to hear if this is consistent with the experiences of others.
People think they know something well until they have to explain it or explain the opposing position. Lawyers have to do this all the time which is probably why there is more balance. Basically the trick is to ask folks to explain something to you as if you were five.
> People think they know something well until they have to explain it or explain the opposing position. Lawyers have to do this all the time which is probably why there is more balance.
I'm going back into tech because the culture of law is much more broken and repellant, but one thing I can say in favor of lawyers over engineers is that, IME at least, they are overall much more willing to recognize when they aren't well-versed in other fields, including both substantively and in terms of mental models.