I'm able to read people VERY well. I can know the type of person someone is after a minute talking with them. I'm also really great with people (thought outside of work I don't like to be around people). Also good at Basketball.
I have been pretty good at that, and at understanding people's intentions and motives, too. I would call that instinct but in law school, all the tests, quizzes, and confrontational Socratic attacks on students are designed to make one think in a legal way devoid from instinct, common sense, or emotion.
For simple People's Court issues, most of us can usually get to the heart of the matter from body language, the way the judge is bringing the conversation, and the facts. But there are a few surprises.
But in complex concepts in law school, beyond People's Court like the UCC, California Penal Code vs. the Model Penal Code, medieval liability law, or understanding judicial dissents, demurers, or appeals, everything that one thinks works for them as a human being in common sense, reading people, and justice falls apart.
I have tried to use my math side to work for me in the alternate universe that is law/law school and one very bright student has been able to come up with a mathematical/statistics type approach to legal issues which has stumped all the professors.
It is well known that math can mirror the objective and precise, but it can sometimes help in the non-orderly world of human behavior and predicting it. Think "A Beautiful Mind" and the examples brought up in that movie where Dr. Nash was the first to suggest bringing in the most unpredictable factors possible and predict, with unusual success (greater that 50.01%), how people would act in psychological situations. Anyway, true or not, a very fascinating concept.