What is our main domain of expertise?

I'm a prosecutor. This requires... well, it's helped greatly by knowledge of many different subjects, though primarily law.

What issues in your domain call most critically for sharp thinking?

Mostly, it's just a general ability to absorb large amounts of information and put it together. Cross-examination requires very high-speed sharp thinking and some showtime skills.

What do you know that might be of interest to the LW community?

I'm sure some would be interested in how criminal law is practiced, but that's more than a post. If you've got specific questions, hey, I'm around.

What do you know that doesn't add much to the discussion?

This is longer.

Bayes' Theorem applies to decayed DNA hits, so that's useful. There's a generally-accepted view that lawyers think differently, but I think there's substantial cross-over from law-thinking to engineering-thinking, at least when it's done right.

In many cases, there are issues that are less technical and more generally psychological; I have only a little special expertise, but I can tell you that the guy who reported his car stolen who is missing his pants had something happen that is not difficult to deduce.

There are many areas where I'm expert enough for my job, but far from expert-expert. I'm quite familiar with collision reconstruction, and my physics background is sufficient to understand the math. I resuscitated some aged accounting knowledge (I wouldn't call it expertise, quite) for a trial a couple years ago.

What might you learn, assuming lawyers are capable of learning, from other LW'ers?

I know very little biology or medicine; I have to talk to people if there's a technical issue and I don't have enough knowledge to see when something's going wrong.

I don't have any serious problem attending autopsies, or viewing unpleasant photos of violent outcomes, but I find medical stuff really - to use a technical legal term - icky.

--JRM