I'm Elizabeth Hotson and in today's Business Daily, we're looking at the highly paid

and highly stressful environment of big corporate law, where for the first time, standard

starting salaries for newly qualified lawyers have topped $200,000.

One firm I came across is paying £170,000 for a newly qualified solicitor who may be $24.

That's around $235,000.

But for that kind of money, you'll have to work extremely hard, sometimes 100 hours a week.

And you could very well be on call 24 hours a day,

which has led to some firms employing special burnout consultants.

A lot of lawyers get actually into their state of exhaustion,

and they get so tired that they may be working even more hours than they need.

So is that kind of pressure sustainable?

This is Business Daily from the BBC.

I'm in London's famous square mile looking up at the glistening towers

and trying to imagine what it would be like to work here,

in one of the big law firms perhaps.

I'm pretty sure it would be very stressful,

but then I would be extremely well rewarded.

And to give you an idea of just how well rewarded, for the first time ever, standard salaries

for newly qualified lawyers at America's biggest corporate law firms have topped $200,000,

and in fact they now stand at $205,000, according to the influential Kravath scale.

That's a 10% increase on last year, and some firms will pay even more than that.

Now, the US isn't alone in paying these princely sums,

...