> Can you imagine if you ask an engineer "what's your opinion on the maximum load this bridge can take?" he answered "for a fee, I will claim that my opinion is what you tell me".
Thanks for reinforcing my point.
To be fair, the deviation from the truth an expert witness may grant tends to be bounded. Whereas the deviation a lawyer may attempt is unbounded. In many cases the bounds don't matter much as the case contains sufficient uncertainly to be a contest of spin targeted at the psychology of the jury.
With lawyers, paying to defend a side is the whole point.