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The other way is to be a rainmaker and leverage off other attorneys working on your cases. This a highly competitive endeavor, in which 90% fail. It is very difficult for a lawyer to get, and keep, a book of paying clients big enough to provide work for 3, 4 or 5 full time lawyers. Very difficult. But, like making it to the Major leagues, or an actor making it big, it would pay quite well.
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Leverage is how most partners in big firms make their money. In fact most large firms will not make you a partner unless you have proven that you can leverage your practice—the higher the better.
But what happens then when, say, a couple of your key clients have no work for you, or god-forbid, cross the road to the competition? Suddenly your six or seven highly paid associates don't have enough to do, so they start spinning their tires on the files that they do have, because they know that their bonuses are dependent on the billable hours they collect, and you encourage them in this because your profit share is dependent upon the collections of your associates.
I think if the average client knew just how inherently conflicted and dishonest the billing process in large law firms is, they'd have a coronary.