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The salaries are a result of the insane hours they have to do. Biglaw needs to pay those salaries to keep getting young associates in the door because burnout is a real problem in the industry. If salaries were lower and hours/stresses were lower, you would probably still find people wanting to be lawyers. A different kind of person, maybe.

(Not that I think AI will necessarily have that effect. We just don't know yet)

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Salaries are about scarcity and leverage, they have little to do with working hours. Nurses pull insane hours and they still don't get paid as much as doctors.

Very few people, if any, are going to bust ass in law school or medical school if they're not going to get rich off it. Better to do literally anything else.

In Biglaw, the scarcity is driven by the hours and stress. If it was a chilled 9-5 job you would certainly have more people willing to do it, even if it paid less.

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