This is so true. I got a law degree as a hobby while working as a software developer. The actual substantive knowledge I got from that hasn't been very useful s

This is so true. I got a law degree as a hobby while working as a software developer. The actual substantive knowledge I got from that hasn't been very useful so far (apart from the occasional online flex...), but the skills I learned to do what you describe have been a real USP for me. Now law school didn't explicitly teach me those skills; there was never a course where someone taught 'how to go deep on any subject'. It was more learned through osmosis, and maybe some aspect of seeing the meta as well. Seeing a few times how rules are never what they seem at first, and that you need to understand the full landscape to really understand, apply and abuse them is the underlying experience/skill. (come to think of it, maybe this is exactly the meta but just looking at it from another side... hmm...)