Gender Gaps in Performance: Evidence from Young Lawyers

Abstract

This paper documents and studies the gender gap in performance among associate lawyers in the United States. Unlike other high-skilled professions, the legal profession assesses performance using transparent measures that are widely used and comparable across firms: the number of hours billed to clients and the amount of new client revenue generated. We find clear evidence of a gender gap in annual performance with respect to both measures. Male lawyers bill ten percent more hours and bring in more than twice the new client revenue than do female lawyers. We demonstrate that the differential impact across genders in the presence of young children and differences in aspirations to become a law firm partner account for a large share of the difference in performance. We also show that accounting for performance has important consequences for gender gaps in lawyers' earnings and subsequent promotion. Whereas individual and firm characteristics explain up to 50 percent of the earnings gap, the inclusion of performance measures explains a substantial share of the remainder.Performance measures also explain a sizeable share of the gender gap in promotion.

Parenthood, Family Friendly Workplaces, and the Gender Gaps in Early Work Careers

“…These findings also are in line with those ofAzmat and Ferrer (2017), who study gender gaps among associate lawyers in the U.S. Though the work by lawyers may have changed by the advances made in information technology, substitutability is arguably low as it is hard to take over clients from colleagues Azmat and Ferrer (2017). show that male lawyers work more hours than female lawyers, and that gender gaps in performance (measured as annual hours billed and the amount of new client revenue brought to the firm) can explain around 50 percent of the earnings gap.…”

“…These findings also are in line with those ofAzmat and Ferrer (2017), who study gender gaps among associate lawyers in the U.S. Though the work by lawyers may have changed by the advances made in information technology, substitutability is arguably low as it is hard to take over clients from colleagues Azmat and Ferrer (2017).…”

What Drives the Gender Gap? An Analysis Using Sexual Orientation

“…Taken at their face value, results in this paper suggest that the main driver of the gender wage gap, as well as other differences in labor market outcomes, is the household. This finding is consistent with the results of two recent studies that have detailed data on productivity unmatched in the previous literature, namely Bertrand et al () and Azmat and Ferrer (). Both papers find that the gender differences in productivity explain a major portion of the gender differences in pay.…”

Discretionary Remote Working Helps Mothers Without Harming Non-mothers: Evidence from a Field Experiment

“…This is, however, not a straightforward proposition for white-collar work output, which is often difficult to quantify (Goldin 2014). 17 With that being said, there are professionsnotably law-in which billable hours constitute the most important measure of productivity (Briscoe andKellogg 2011, Azmat andFerrer 2017). Law firms may therefore be an ideal setting in which to further examine the performance implications of remote working.…”