Have a look at this: https://ukcalculator.com/barrister-fees-calculator.html

It is for the UK but no doubt m'learned friends in the US can command even higher fees.

Try grabbing a KC for five days, civil/commercial with all the trimmings. That will set you back £105,000.

Obviously the impoverished KC won't pocket all that lolly. There is VAT to pay and staff costs and stuff.

A KC is one of these: https://kcappointments.org/ for obvious reasons they used to known as QCs

Yes. Well they certainly bill at that rate, it goes some to the lawyer, some to rent, etc.

Lawyers fees for a case like that also include expenses, and this would be on the high side.

Court fees, fees for accessing case law, experts, paralegals, etc.

You pay the lawyer and a big portion of that goes towards his costs for additional labour and everything else. A lawyer grossing $2m/year isn't bringing home anything close to that.

That said $250k for a single lawyer for 6 weeks seems high.

I've only had to hire a lawyer once, and it was $2,500 to have them file a couple papers and speak to the judge once.

You're paying for their experience, just like an engineer - only it's often much higher stakes than a piece of software or product: your livelihood or freedom.

Yes. About 5-10% at a big firm earn that.