>The high rates that top lawyers get paid are simply market rates
Market rates propped up by having the ability to restrict entry into the market controlled by other lawyers.
Market rates propped up by having the ability to restrict entry into the market controlled by other lawyers.
In my opinion the real reason is that some areas of law like patent litigation require highly specialiced knowledge that is almost impossible to acquire outside of a few special firms. An unexperienced law school graduate trying to do patent litigation would be like a med school graduate trying to do brain surgery - it just isn't feasible without years of additional training by someone who is already an expert in the field. But while after medical school this is provided by the residency programs at hospitals, all that exists for lawyers is starting as an associate at specialized for-profit biglaw firms - who have no interest in "teaching" as many people as possible, but raher in maximizing their billing rates...
$250+/hr is the common baseline rate in my area for real commercial legal services (that is, more than emailing a template for a contract), not the "A class rate", and I would guess areas with higher cost of living are worse off. I have associates that pay $450-$500+/hr for their legal help. I know of lawyers that charge $750+/hr; that, you may say, is the "A class" rate for lawyership. Note the disparity between development consultancies and legal firms -- we max out near a law firm's minimum rate.
Comparison to other highly-skilled professionals, like developers, is indeed valuable, but only further demonstrates the exorbitance of legal pricing.
You can start coding for hire right out of high school, if you've done the right prep work. It takes ~7 years before you can start practicing law.
I would argue that at least 50% of programmers out there are not 'highly-skilled professionals,' being neither highly skilled nor professional.