One of the most important skills a lawyer can have is being able to comprehend highly complex topics in a very short time with minimal information to a reasonable level of confidence that they can advise genuine subject matter experts (experts the lawyer counts on knowing more about a topic than the lawyer does) about risk issues.

This is, of course, one of the most important skills anybody can have, but most people are terrible at it (whether by lack of talent or lack of practice) so our society pays lawyers to do it for them.