The difference between a lawyer and a real person, aka a civilian or non-lawyer, is that lawyers know how to do something that you don't, which is how to read a case.
Anyone who can read English can read a case.
But it takes a law trained person, aka lawyer, to understand what s/he is reading.
Here's the catch
Each published appellate written decision contains a recital of the facts, the procedure concerning how the case or controversy reached this court, the decision, meaning the ruling in favor of this side or that (sometimes each side gets something good) and the rule of law used to decide the particular issue. Decisions usually, or may, involve many issues. Some are uninteresting, but the cases that make the big time, meaning are cited repeatedly and studied in law schools, have at least one issue, and the decision on that issue, that is very interesting. This is the one that breaks new ground, representing a departure from old law and the creation of new.
Judge-made law this may be called, or judicial legislating. It's been a part of the common law process since the beginning, whenever that was.
But you have to know how to make this law, in case you too become a judge, how to follow it, how to disregard it, usually by distinguishing it, meaning that you say it doesn't count, or control, because something in the facts or law is different, whether it is or not.
Prof. Orin Kerr has written an article on how to read a judicial opinion.
You don't have to be a lawyer to read a case. You do have to be able to read English. And how to read an opinion.
One of the best legal readers and writers I know is not a lawyer. He's a historian. He learned how to read a case in order to understand history.
Lawyers need to understand history in order to understand the meaning of cases.
If you read a case written today, that's one thing. But if you read a case from the time of World War One, or the Civil War, you'd better know something of the context, otherwise you may think you understand something you don't.
Old cases seem to be missing ideas we take for granted today.
New cases forget about ideas that have gone by the boards.
But sometimes you get a decision where the ideas go way back indeed.
Good lawyers and historians can trace the ideas, or at least know where to start looking to trace them. Then they may find out that there's even more to study and know.
Law, and history, are good places for people who like to know where ideas come from, and how they are applied.