Recently, I was being cross-examined in court as an expert witness on treatment and maltreatment of people with disabilities. My credentials were being challenged, and I was accused of being “an advocate.” The implication was that it is possible to be an advocate or an expert, but one can’t possibly be both. In other words, one can know something or one can care about something, but you can’t actually know about anything that you care about. I didn’t have the nerve to say it in court, but I suspect that the opposite may be true.

Everybody advocates for something and ultimately being “right” or “wrong” is an issue of the quality of the facts and arguments that we bring to the table.