It's a very odd system. If you can prove you usually charge clients $1000/hour, then you can probably force the other side to pay you that fee. It therefore follows that if you think you have a very good chance of recovering legal fees, you may want to actively seek the best and most expensive lawyer possible, both to help your chances of victory and to punish your opponent if and when you win. Of course, this option is not available to people who cannot already afford the most expensive lawyer.
When the President got his legal fees paid by Stormy Daniels, his most expensive lawyer was charging about $850/hour. The judge cut it back, not because the lawyer was too expensive hourly, but because he felt the lawyer had billed too many hours.
When an attorney charges $500+ per hour, they never seem to justify that fee. Corporate litigation expenses can easily be thousands of dollars per hour. You have multiple paralegals. Multiple associates, and perhaps a partner. A case that makes it to a courtroom can exceed thousands per hour.
I paid a trademark attorney for some work at it was $350 for about 15 minutes of work. $10k per hour would be a stretch, but $1000 an hour? Not particularly noteworthy.
