You could say the same for any number of industries - hire the wrong structural engineer and that bridge or building will collapse, hire the wrong nuclear engineer and attack sub might run out of power while engaging the enemy, hire the wrong electrical engineer and the airliner's control system may fail, etc - and yet only very few people in those industries can ask for over $250/hr.

Similarly, with the police, because they are charged with law enforcement and being equipped with guns is very different than dealing the local surly person at the market.

That's why I'm of the opinion that certain professions need a lot more oversight and avenues of recourse than others. One would be foolish to think otherwise.

In each of your examples, the person you are referring to has a ton of oversight and proceesses in place to catch errors. (I don't know about nuke engineer, but in general the military avoids paying market wages by recruiting then training then placing).

In the lawyer situation picking the wrong guy can be financial suicide.

This is generally true. However, there's increasing pressure from clients, not to simply push billing rates lower, but for flat-fee arrangements.

While in many areas of law the billable hour is secure [1], in many others there not only isn't a strong argument in favor of it, but clients are increasingly pushing back against it [2].

And I'm not surprised to see a successful lawyer completely ignoring it, even in a post that serves largely as a setup for his pitch about coming disruption. IME every lawyer who hasn't seen his primary clients insist on flat-fee billing would prefer to pretend the issue didn't exist. And those that are dealing with flat-fees, would prefer not to talk too loudly about it, for many of the prestige/traditional reasons behind the ever-increasing billable rate itself.

Now, most firms are structured in a way that can wrap their minds around a $400 billing rate and remain profitable without changing things too much -- indeed they likely already have attorneys making the firm money charging "only" $400/hr.

But a flat-fee is not only anathema to their pride, but largely unsustainable given their structures. Between the lines of those comments about "overhead" is the fact that most of it is unnecessary, legacy nonsense that has persisted solely because the billable hour warps incentives. [3] Most law firms are simply not ready for pricing that will require them to so optimize their internal operations. And this is where the real disruption will appear and where middle firms have an opportunity. [4]

[1] Mergers, acquisitions, litigation, etc.

[2] Legal zoom-type work, some ip registration, etc.

[3] Hourly billing rewards inefficiency. If an attorney can generate enough business to keep themselves and their billable staff busy for as many hours per day that they care to work, cutting the time it takes them to perform their tasks by 20% means they bill 20% less. Which means they need to go scare up 20% more work to merely maintain their previous revenues. And as generating new business is not itself billable, Attorneys tend to treat "increased efficiency" as "more work for the same money".

[4] They have some experience, less 'pride' clouding their vision, but sufficient revenue to fund experiments in innovation.

I suspect there's an opportunity for disruption here. Google doesn't hire most of their engineers based on 'brand'. They hire based on ability.

If one were to create an efficient way to identify GOOD lawyers from middle tier firms and these solo outfits, this may wrest a good amount of business from top tier firms.

Someone who works at Google could have better input, but my understanding is that they choose top brand name schools to recruit from. And they recruit from top startups that they acquire.

Also, the discussion about lawyers is not about hiring individuals, it is about hiring an individual within a firm. A firm which has resources to back that lawyer.

--But, you are right that being able to identify great lawyers at mid tier firms would lead you to a very interesting business. If you can figure it out, please recruit me and give me options. :)--

There are plenty of good lawyers from middle tier firms, solo outfits, and boutique (i.e., specialty) firms. These practitioners already service the vast majority of people needing legal assistance (including small-to-medium businesses).

Corporations choose BigLaw not because they're the best (boutiques and specialized mid-tier firms generally produce higher-quality results in any given area of law), but because BigLaw firms have the resources and capabilities to handle anything that a large corporation can throw at them. When you're dealing with dozens or hundreds of litigation cases across the country in a dozen or more areas of the law, you go with a BigLaw firm b/c that one firm can handle all of your legal matters, reducing complexity and cost.