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Lawyers Gear Up Grand New Fees, Hourly Rates Increasingly Hit $1,000 (Once Seen as Taboo)
WSJ ^ | Wednesday, August 22, 2007 | NATHAN KOPPEL

Posted on 08/22/2007 7:02:09 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay

The hourly rates of the country's top lawyers are increasingly coming with something new -- a comma.

A few attorneys crossed into $1,000-per-hour billing before this year, but recent moves to the four-figure mark in New York, which sets trends for legal markets around the country, are seen as a significant turning point.

On Sept. 1, New York's Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP will raise its top rate to more than $1,000 from $950.

A select group of attorneys began billing at that rate before this year, such as Stephen Susman, a founding partner of a Houston firm who has tried big-ticket cases around the country, and Benjamin Civiletti, a former U.S. Attorney General under President Carter and a senior partner at Washington, D.C-based Venable LLP. And in London, top attorneys bill at rates that, when converted, can hit almost $1,500 an hour.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: benjaminciviletti; lawyers; legal; market; stephensusman; tortreformnow
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Considering a major-league baseball player can make the equivalent of $15,000 per hour, "$1,000 for very seasoned lawyers who can solve complex problems doesn't seem to be inappropriate," says Mike Dillon, the general counsel of Sun Microsystems Inc.

1 posted on 08/22/2007 7:02:13 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
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To: fight_truth_decay

Why? Lawyers aren’t that scarce. They’re a dime a dozen it seems.


2 posted on 08/22/2007 7:07:24 PM PDT by loreldan (Without coffee I am nothing.)
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To: loreldan

Look at what they practice. Their clients can pay , actually their clients probably look at them like oh say the gardener.


3 posted on 08/22/2007 7:11:48 PM PDT by marty60
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To: fight_truth_decay

Shysters ain’t cheap!


4 posted on 08/22/2007 7:17:17 PM PDT by Abcdefg
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To: fight_truth_decay

If they are good at what they do, it would be worth it. Finding the good ones is the big issue.


5 posted on 08/22/2007 7:29:51 PM PDT by yldstrk (My heros have always been cowboys--Reagan and Bush)
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To: fight_truth_decay

We have the best justice system in this country that money can buy.


6 posted on 08/22/2007 7:33:14 PM PDT by rogator
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To: loreldan

Lawyers are a dime a dozen, until you need one.

We need government sponsored legal care to control the costs of hiring lawyers. We need price controls on lawyers to make sure the working class can afford legal help. We need Hillarycare for lawyers!


7 posted on 08/22/2007 7:46:42 PM PDT by Lord Basil
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To: loreldan

Why? Lawyers aren’t that scarce. They’re a dime a dozen it seems.


You just made the case against your own hypothesis.

Either lawyers are overpaid, or there are too many of them. Both can’t be true.


8 posted on 08/22/2007 8:13:24 PM PDT by Atlas Sneezed ("We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts; I support them, I won't chip away at them" -Mitt Romney)
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To: yldstrk

Finding the good ones is the big issue.


Same for plumbers, doctors, teachers, and every other occupation under the sun.


9 posted on 08/22/2007 8:14:08 PM PDT by Atlas Sneezed ("We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts; I support them, I won't chip away at them" -Mitt Romney)
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To: fight_truth_decay

I wonder what the paralegals — who actually do the work — are being billed out and what they’re paid.


10 posted on 08/22/2007 8:20:18 PM PDT by Fast Moving Angel (Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. --Einstein)
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To: Lord Basil
We need government sponsored legal care to control the costs of hiring lawyers. We need price controls on lawyers to make sure the working class can afford legal help. We need Hillarycare for lawyers!

What we need is to bust the Lawyers Union that bilks money for the dispensation of justice that each American citizen is promised without cost under the pact between the government and the people that is known as the United States Constitution.

Lawyers today are pimps. (meaning no disrespect to street pimps who are just trying to earn a honest living.)

11 posted on 08/22/2007 8:37:01 PM PDT by the final gentleman
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To: loreldan

$1000 an hour for evil, corrupt, totalitarian parasites who contribute absolutely nothing to society. Lawyers are a curse on humanity.


12 posted on 08/22/2007 8:42:42 PM PDT by FormerACLUmember (The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims.)
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To: loreldan
Why? Lawyers aren’t that scarce. They’re a dime a dozen it seems...still, they all manage to stay busy it seems - for every lawyer out there protecting your rights, there are five at work trying to figure out a way to take them away from you.......
13 posted on 08/22/2007 9:09:34 PM PDT by Intolerant in NJ
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To: fight_truth_decay

With these guys you’re not paying for their legal skills.


14 posted on 08/22/2007 9:14:47 PM PDT by joebuck
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To: Beelzebubba
Either lawyers are overpaid, or there are too many of them. Both can’t be true.

I am afraid both are true.

US has the highest number of lawyers per capita, one lawyer in 60 people.

US lawyers are the most expensive in the world.

15 posted on 08/22/2007 9:20:12 PM PDT by Anticommie
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To: loreldan
Cardinal rule of the whorehouse--charge what the traffic will bear.

Anyone obliged to afford these scum undoubtedly needs them. They therefore deserve to pay through the nose for the filth that they hire.

16 posted on 08/22/2007 9:34:17 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: fight_truth_decay

You know what’s even SCARIER?

8 HUMAN hours can be coverted into 20-25 BILLABLE ATTORNEY HOURS!


17 posted on 08/22/2007 9:38:37 PM PDT by tcrlaf (You can lead a Liberal to LOGIC, but you can't make it THINK)
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To: Anticommie

There’s no way 1 out of 60 people in this country is a lawyer. Where did you read that?


18 posted on 08/23/2007 4:12:37 AM PDT by College Repub
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To: tcrlaf

Obviously what we need is a “windfall excess profits tax” on legal fees just like the RATS are calling for on Big Oil.


19 posted on 08/23/2007 4:24:36 AM PDT by jslade (The beatings well cease when morale improves!)
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To: Anticommie; College Repub
1 per 356 people.
20 posted on 08/23/2007 4:29:33 AM PDT by SC DOC
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