E.g. see: http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/print-edition/2012/04/27/l.... The firm in the article is a 135 lawyer outfit (so solidly on the larger end of mid-sized) with offices in Boston and D.C. and four other Northeastern cities. Partners bill out between $300-$500. (No affiliation, just Google-ed).
Experienced solo practitioners serving individuals in personal matters might charge $100-$150. And if you just need someone with a JD, you can get one for $10/hour on Craigslist.
Then on the other end of the spectrum, you have firms like Wachtell Lipton, who basically only do billion dollar M&A deals. They don't even charge a fee, they charge a percentage of the deal value. People hire them because when you've got a $5 billion deal, you don't care if your legal fees end up in the tens of millions of dollars.
Price is a signal that people use for quality. Nobody wants to get discount legal advice. When things go well, you save a couple of bucks. When things go bad, you can lose a lot more.
This applies to the medical field too.