Hat tip to Broc Romanek's CorporateCounsel.net blog for alerting us to the trend in lawyers' pay. Not quite hedge fund manager territory but impressive nonetheless.

Just three years out of law school and working at a big city law firm and your pay packet is already pushing past $200,000, according to The Paycheck Report in The American Lawyer. And at some firms, profits per partner are soaring well into the six digit territory.

Of course, in a place as expensive as Manhattan that sort of money does not necessarily make you rich. But it does some way to explaining why those legal fees are so high.