[jacquesm]

Even the worst lawyers still charge 100's of $/E per hour and to get certain services performed you have to go through a lawyer.

Now, I've met some - very few - lawyers that were worth their rates (one of which is commenting in this thread) but for the most part it is simply a title that in and of itself seems to make a mediocre performer suddenly worth a very large amount of money on an hourly basis.

The funny thing is that I suspect the rest of the world probably looks at IT people in much the same way (only we don't have the equivalent of a bar association, and if we did I suspect the minimum rate for a programmer would shoot up).

[Digory]

The 'inelastic' fees aren't the result of overt price fixing, but the professional rules imposed by the bars. At some point, lawyers don't take on the duties for less than $x00.

Lawyers on the internet will tell you a lot for free, and look at all the documents you want for $20/hr, as long as you don't hold them responsible for putting it in front of a judge. And no matter how many excess lawyers come out of law schools, fees don't go below $x00 for most lawyers.

In litigation, those rules are probably necessary for the benefit of the system. In transactions, there should be fewer.

[jacquesm]

> but the professional rules imposed by the bars.

Which are made of lawyers. So price fixing.

[Digory]

Yes. More like a minimum wage, but that's a government intervention into price, too.

[rayiner]

In the U.S. at least, Department of Justice antitrust litigation has prevented law schools from artificially limiting the supply of lawyers. There are about twice as many law graduates each year as job openings. If you just need someone with a law license, you can hire them for $20/hour on craigslist.