Headscratchers / Star Trek: The Next Generation S4E21 "The Drumhead"

• Is Riker a lawyer? He seems to be acting as Tarses's counsel in this, even advising him what rights to invoke on the stand. Yet it doesn't seem apparent that Riker was ever mentioned as having pursued a law degree at Starfleet Academy.
  • It's an established part of Trek lore that in the absence of sufficient legal council, officers of command rank are used to substitute as defense council and prosecutors despite not being lawyers. Presumably their general knowledge of Starfleet procedures and Federation law is expected to compensate for their lack of specific legal training. In this case I do wonder why they couldn't get him a proper lawyer since they apparently had the time to get admirals out to the Enterprise to observe the proceedings, but that's a separate question.
  • It is a disturbing behavior in Starfleet, which we have seen before, that they seem to like holding trials with potential for major impact on individual rights in carefully controlled situations where proper legal counsel for the defense is (perhaps deliberately) unavailable.