Hourly Billing Rates Continue to Rise

The below article appeared in Law.com. Makes one think that with the hourly rate increasing how much more inclined will clients be to avail of high quality, affordable work?
Legal Offshoring/Outsourcing will provide an avenue to get some of these costs down.

Upward trend still in evidence at law firms, with some notable figures at the high end of the scaleLindsay FortadoThe National Law Journal12-12-2005
It's a good time to be a lawyer.
Billing rates for law firm attorneys jumped last year, with partners and associates raking in more dollars per hour than ever before. And at least one partner now charges $1,000, the first four-figure hourly rate reported to The National Law Journal. This year, 116 law firms responded to questions about billing rates included as part of the NLJ's 2005 survey of the nation's 250 largest law firms. (The survey is sent to about 300 firms, therefore some firms included in this survey are not among the NLJ 250.) Of those 116 responding firms, 102 also supplied answers to those questions in the 2004 survey. The 2005 results indicate that most firms raised their rates for both partners and associates at both the high and low ends of their ranges. Seventy-nine of the 102 firms that responded in both 2004 and 2005 raised their highest rates for partner this year, while 10 reduced theirs and 13 kept them the same. Seventy-six firms raised their lowest rates for partners, while 10 decreased them and 16 kept them the same.