Unique to good lawyers: persuasive argumentation, interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, public speaking

Unique to good programmers: logical thinking, systems thinking

What is the question behind your question?

Programming smashed that whole model - you can learn online, jump into open source, and prove yourself through what you actually build rather than what credentials you have.

Law school teaches you to think in precedent and interpretation within whatever frameworks already exist. Programming culture is way more about experimenting and building completely new stuff from the ground up. One field rewards you for working within the system, the other rewards you for tearing it down and rebuilding it better.

Sure, both require logical thinking, but they use it in totally different ways that create completely different professional mindsets.

What sucks for programming is that because of all this, it gets seen as something trivial - especially now with AI writing applications that technically work but have zero architectural thought behind them. They'll do exactly what you asked for and nothing more, then fall apart when you actually need them to scale.

Finding any programmer is easy these days, finding a good one isn't - it's gotten way harder with AI around and the Dunning-Kruger effect is everywhere in the field.

The ML community hit this wall too. Say you're an AI engineer and people immediately lump you in with those "pay-me-to-talk" types going on about "quantum fields and vibrations to boost your workforce energy and productivity."

"I'm a lawyer" still gets you respect. "I'm an AI/Software Engineer" gets you grouped with the snake oil salespeople. That disparity just makes the whole thing worse.

But the most distinctive difference is that it is illegal to practice law without a license. You can be a programmer and vibe code something without any credentials.

They are not the same.

As for other comments claiming that programmers but not lawyers are logical and systems thinkers, the commenters seem to be unacquainted with the practice of law in the real world.