[hackernewbie]

Because of my own myopic, self-interestedness I actually do think some programmers are smarter than most lawyers. But this article is not evidence or argument of that.

Knowledge wise they are on a par, though having said that you can't be a lawyer without knowing x > massive amounts of law, and you can be a programmer (not necessarily a good one) without knowing x amounts about a language, structures, and low level.

The kicker is abstract/mathmatical knowledge/ability. Lawyers require none. To my mind abstract problems require the most 'intelligence' as it were. But again that's personal bias.