(Bloomberg Business) -- Litigators—lawyers who work to helpclients win, or survive lawsuits—can have high-stakes careers. Onefemale litigator’s job, however, came with a less thrillingdescription.

“She had always been the self-appointed ‘detail-oriented taskmanager on the team, scheduling meetings, keeping the calendar andtaking notes,’” wrote the author of a broad study on workplace inequality in law, released byAmerican Lawyer magazine last week, about one of thelawyers who journalists interviewed. The lawyer’s malecolleagues called her their “work wife.”

The “work wife” badge is a symbol of a culture in whichwomen are seen as supporters of, rather than equalto, their male peers. Women in law tend to do lower-level tasks forclients and earn less for the hours they work, accordingto the study, which based its findings on interviews withfour dozen firm leaders, professors, consultants, and womenpartners.

Law firms have been trying to hire more women and keep the onesthey have, but they’re missing the mark. The report found thatat the 200 top-grossing firms, just 17 percent of equitypartners are women, a share that’s hardly budged over the pastdecade.

“All the Pinot Grigio-fueled women’s networking events andanti-bias ‘training’ seminars” have failed, wrote Julie Triedman, awriter for the American Lawyer.

Part of the reason women earn less, on average, seems to be thatmany of them want to have children and don’t see any way ofdoing that without leaving their job. The chart below offers arough timeline of the turning points when women slowly dropout of the career race. But even women who stay on track end upearning less than men for working themselves silly. Female lawyersearn nearly $250,000 less than men per year, according to a surveyof 2,000 firm partners last year that was cited bythe American Lawyer.

The pay gap belies the fact that lawfirms tend offer clients a discount on the work women do forthem. Female partners at big law firms billed $47 less perhour, on average, than men, according to a 2014 analysis of$3.4 billion in bills. Most male partners charged morethan $500 per hour, while less than a third of women did.Why do men earn more? Maybe because they don’t play the role ofhouse husband at work.

"If you ask a woman litigator, 'Do you do the litigationhousework?' they immediately say, 'We know what you mean, yeah, wedo the task lists,'" University of California, San FranciscoHastings College of Law professor Joan Williams told the AmericanLawyer.

Even when women are doing outstanding jobs, they get lesscredit. Research has shown that women who reported bringing in thesame amount of business as their male peers still got a smallerpaycheck, to the tune of up to $1.1 million less. So much for thePinot Grigio.

Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,or redistributed.