While interesting, that's a very particular definition of "productive" - male lawyers billed more hours. That doesn't necessarily correspond to more actual work done.
Depends what you mean by "productive" - if the law firm makes more money off of male lawyers, that would mean they are more "productive"
Directly, perhaps. What if the women were doing non-billable work that enabled their colleagues to bill more combined total hours than they would have had she done billable work instead?
Are you referring to something, or just asking "what if"?
I'm challenging the parent's assumption that an individual's billable hours are an accurate representation of that person's contribution to a firm's top line, let alone bottom line.
Accurately and consistently measuring performance of professionals has been all but impossible for the better part of the last century.
I don't know why we keep trying. This is what peer reviews are for.