This is accurate. Patent litigation is at the top and pulls the most fees by far.
Of course, it can also be very challenging. Setting aside troll/NPE cases, you're sometimes competing against the best attorneys at the best firms in the country, in cases where the amounts of revenue at stake vastly exceed any amount that the attorneys could reasonably bill (even at the typical rates of $500-$1500/hr).
My dad told me a story once about being paid for expert witnessing for patent expertise.
The short version was that some company's legal team was looking to hire him for expert witnessing. They knew who he was, and had a rough idea of his opinion already, and knew that he was more or less opposed to their position. So he asked them why they'd be willing to pay $?!?/hr for him to read stuff and tell them that he thought they were wrong.
They basically told him "if paying you $?!?!? allows us some insight into the opposition's potential strategy that lets us file a motion that just delays a ruling from morning until after noon recess, that will recoup all the costs we pay you". And apparently they weren't even exaggerating because in half a day they pulled over an order of magnitude more than $?!?!? in sales.
Evidently this sort of paying experts who disagree with you to help form your case strategy is just a normal thing, and it makes sense to me, I just couldn't fathom the numbers at the time. The amount of money specifically in drug patent cases is staggering. There is a long, long list of drugs that pull in over a billion dollars a year in sales.
The US's total (legal) drug market is like half a trillion dollars.
Don’t discount the nice side effect that when you hire the opposing parties’ best possible expert, they are then precluded from working for the other side.
Of course, it can also be very challenging. Setting aside troll/NPE cases, you're sometimes competing against the best attorneys at the best firms in the country, in cases where the amounts of revenue at stake vastly exceed any amount that the attorneys could reasonably bill (even at the typical rates of $500-$1500/hr).