ABSTRACT
Is a legal expert someone who knows the law? Knowing the law would seem to be a good starting point, but clearly, when choosing a lawyer, we look for much more than this. After all, clients want a lawyer who can win for them, but winning involves much more than knowing the law. One cannot rely on rules alone, because in the law rules such as statutes and regulations are insufficiently well defined, and thus the legal expert must resort to other sources of legal authority-primarily previously decided authorities to elaborate and explain the application of the law. This is not undesirable, because the law must be fluid and adaptive, bending as social and political circumstances demand.
