Lawyers' Man of the Hour

Nelson and other compensation experts point out that what a lawyer charges per hour isn't the same as what the lawyer takes home. After the firm pays its bills, the partners split what's left. They may also collect bonuses and contingency fees. Civiletti's rate doesn't come close to making him one of the nation's highest-paid lawyers.

Trial attorneys can win multibillion-dollar verdicts and earn fees that break down into more than $1,000 an hour, said Coffee. And a firm working on a merger may charge its client a percentage of a deal instead of billing by the hour.

The lawyers who successfully sued tobacco companies in 1998, for example, raked in billions of dollars in fees. Not long after, the marriage of Time Warner and America Online Inc. netted $35 million for New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, which represented Time Warner.

"If you calculate the rates in those situations, they make Civiletti's rate look cheap," said Stuart Pape, managing partner for Patton Boggs.

For those reasons, Civiletti dismisses the notion that he's reached any sort of milestone.

"The figure is meaningless," he said of his rate.

But hourly rates are the starting point of conversations with clients about what they will pay, compensation experts said. And they serve as benchmarks for the industry.

"These things do have an effect of dragging up the market. Everybody feels liberated to raise rates. They may not raise it to $1,000, but maybe by $50," Coffee said.

London barristers have already helped make their U.S. counterparts richer. Many companies have become used to paying rates of upward of $1,000 an hour, because of unfavorable exchange rates, said Ward Bower, principal of Altman Weil Inc., a legal management consulting firm in Philadelphia. "Six hundred pounds an hour times a buck seventy-five gets you past $1,000," he said.

Nelson and managing partners of several local firms countered that Civiletti was not likely to spark a race to the top.

"This is a special case for him," Nelson said.

"There are very few Ben Civilettis around," Miller said.

Civiletti's peers at Venable seem to agree. A committee at Venable determined his rate in consultation with managers and with clients, said Managing Partner James Shea.

"I had little to do with it," Civiletti said.

Still, he ventured a guess that the hike was based on "seniority," "the nature of the specialized work" that he does and possibly his "efficiency."

Civiletti, who has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and represented clients such as the French government, picks his projects with care and often "dips" into other cases when needed, he said. Civiletti, who also does pro bono work, estimated that he puts in about 1,800 hours a year, far less than the 2,400 he used to work.

He focuses his energy mainly on strategy and supervising associates and paralegals, who do the heavy lifting.

"We have soldiers to do soldiers' work, majors to do majors' work and generals to do generals' work," he said.