Of all the reasons women quit Big Law—the old-boys' network, lack of mentors and sponsors, client development challenges and plain old sexism—there's another explanation that's far more pedestrian: housework.

Women are leading double lives—high-powered lawyers at the office, and Susie Homemaker everywhere else. According to an American Bar Association and ALM Legal Intelligence survey of 1,300 lawyers at the nation's 350 largest firms, women are bearing the lion's share of responsibilities at home:

• 54 percent of women (versus 1 percent of men) say child care is their responsibility.
• 39 percent of women (versus 11 percent of men) say they cook the meals.
• 34 percent of women (versus 5 percent of men) say they leave work for children's needs.

No surprise, then, that the survey finds that 60 percent of women cite care-taking as the reason they ditched their jobs. The shocker isn't that women do more chores than men, but how much more. (Repeat: Only 1 percent men consider child care their responsibility.)

For more than two decades women have constituted about half of the law school student population and marched in droves to elite law firms, so why are they still playing a 1950s housewife on the side?

“Even with progressive families who try to balance duties, society is against them,” says a female Am Law 100 partner who lives in New York with her husband and three kids. “It's a cultural vestige of days gone by. School teachers reach out to mothers first, as do pediatricians, nannies—you name it.”

Societal expectations explain part of the June Cleaver syndrome, but women themselves can't seem to cede their traditional turf. Often, women joke (sort of) about why they take on so much of the domestic responsibilities. “If I want to make sure something is done right—that the kids eat decently, don't wear funny clothes and that the house doesn't smell bad—I have to do it myself,” says a senior in-house counsel.

It's a phenomenon that extends to other high-achieving women. Research by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Co. found that senior female managers are seven times more likely than men to perform home duties. And the Harvard Business Review reports that female CEOs expect little support—either at work or at home—for their careers.

So what can be done to help women before they drive themselves to exhaustion and throw in the towel? Is it the structure of domestic life that needs to be fixed? Or are workplaces still not accommodating women's lives?

“We don't need to fix the women or their families; we need to fix the firms,” says Stephanie Scharf, a leading advocate for women in law who chaired the ABA's commission on women. The key, she explains, is that employers “adjust and adapt to the reality of what many—albeit not all—women need,” such as advancement opportunities for lawyers who work part time or flextime schedules and for those who take extended leaves. “I think that many men would love to be in that kind of firm,” adds Scharf. If firms fail to adopt more creative, flexible career routes, she warns, “they will continue to be led overwhelmingly by males and lose large numbers of talented lawyers.”

I get what Scharf is saying: Keep the pressure on firms so they don't regress. That said, I wonder if women shouldn't be putting more pressure on their significant others, too. In the last decade, women have been vocal that workplaces address scheduling and parenthood issues, but why aren't they demanding more gender equality at home?

The problem, some women say, is that it's hard to sell men on the glories of “home management” (the euphemism for housework). “A home boss has enormous power,” says the New York lawyer with three kids. But it's hard to convince men, even those who aren't so focused on making money, to take the position, she says, “because the home boss doesn't get the same accolades and remuneration.”

“It's a thankless job,” she says.

All work and no glory: Now that's the kind of job women will take every time. So while men might say they're supportive of women's careers at the office, many are not doing anything close to their fair share at home.

Not to rock the boat, but isn't it high time for a rebellion at home?

Contact Vivia Chen at [email protected] or on Twitter @lawcareerist.