The very top does well, even very very well. Most everyone else scrapes by--if that.
Most professional jobs aren't like that. Sure senior execs can make an outsized amount of money but most of the rank and file are still doing OK.
All those other ones you mentioned rely on popularity to determine one's paycheck, which is why they are all pyramids.
Law isn't quite so stark. You don't have to be at a white shoe firm to do OK (corporate counsel, prosperous practice in a smaller city) but a lot of lawyers certainly make pretty modest salaries.
And lawyers are very bimodal. You have a ton of lawyers who make less than <$90K/yr, and then a whole bunch making >$200K/yr, and not a lot in between.
I assume at some point the job was mostly offshored? It's one of those things that I wonder if people overseas would do a better job even at the same price, if they saw it as a great job, as opposed to Americans who see it as a badge of failure.
Historically, law schools were also something that folks from even elite liberal arts colleges went to because they weren't sure what they wanted to do when they "grew up." I know a lot of folks with law degrees that maybe worked as associates for a few years but ended off going and doing something else related to politics or whatever.
Though I recall ~20 years ago that MLB players on league minimums (~70k/yr) were able to collect state unemployment benefits during the off season.