DRESSING FOR COURT: GUIDANCE AND TWO NEW USEFUL LINKS
Two posts on the “Yetanotherbloggingbarrister” blog are worth reading on the, sometimes difficult, question of dress for pupil barristers. I provide the links here. This provides a chance to look again at guidance given more widely. Not only for pupils but for advocates and all those attending court.
“The Court:
Mr. Gambini, didn’t I tell you that the next time you appear in my court that you dress appropriately?
Counsel: You were serious about that? “
(My Cousin Vinny).
THE YET ANOTHER BLOGGING BARRISTER BLOG
There are two posts of interest:
Another post written by a female barrister Dress Advice for Female Pupils
OTHER USEFUL ADVICE
The question of how you dress is a serious subject. Anyone who doubts that should read the article by Roanoke City Circuit Judge Clifford R Weckstein in Ad-dress-ing Counsel written in 2006.
THE ARTICLE
The judge was responding to an email from a fellow judge asking whether there was a written dress code for attorneys. As ever the aim of this post is to encourage you to read the original. However the judge himself encourages readers to read the footnotes and it useful to
THERE ARE NO WRITTEN STANDARDS BUT…
The article is written as a response to the enquiry from the judge.
“• While the judges of our circuit have not adopted a written dress code for attorneys, we do, indeed, have clear expectations about how lawyers will be dressed when they are in the courtrooms, judges’ chambers and “judicial corridors” of each of the courthouses.
• We expect lawyers to be attired professionally when they are in a courtroom, judge’s office, or judicial corridor, without regard to whether they are planning to see a judge, or whether they were “not planning to come to the courthouse today.”
• Our expectations are based upon well-established standards of professional attire that apply not only to “a lawyer appearing in a court of record in Virginia,”2 but to lawyers appearing in state and federal courts throughout the United States. (And you can be sure that these standards, and our expectations, are not “unspoken” when, for example, a lawyer shows up in a circuit judge’s office wearing a polo shirt.)”
AND THE FOOTNOTES
“Lawyers must dress for court. No ripped jeans, but no top hat, tails, and spats, either. A well-dressed lawyer is formal but not inflated. Clothes do not make the lawyer. But they get the lawyer into court.”
Gerald Lebovitz, Dress for Success: Be Formal But Not Inflated, New York State Bar Assn. J., July–August 2001, at 8
“Use the trial lawyer’s rule: ‘Dress so appropriately for the circumstance and your role in it, that no one especially notices your clothing. They focus on you and your message.’”
Alan Parisse, SpeakerNet News, 7/28/2000, http://www.speakernetnews.com/post/businesscasual.html
“Your personal appearance and conduct in the courtroom is visible evidence of your respect for the rule of law and the administration of justice.… All attorneys shall wear appropriate attire. Men shall wear coats and ties. Women shall wear professional attire, i.e.: conservative dresses, suits and pantsuits. Appropriate attire for attorneys does not include jeans, warm-ups, jogging suits, sweats, shorts or other casual or athletic clothing, including athletic shoes.”
Okl. R. 7 Dist. Ct. R. 40
“Attorneys should not appear in court wearing sports, leisure or casual wear. Stirrup pants, culottes, men’s shirts with banded collars, casual sandals or shoes will not be considered proper court attire.”
OTHER JUDGES ON THE SUBJECT
It is worth noting that some of the other judges featured in this series have had strong views on this subject.
Mr Justice Joseph W Quinn in the first post of the series
Your appearance counts
“If I tell you that your physical appearance counts, this fact, surely, will have some of you inching towards the door. Successful counsel look successful. They look the part. They do not wear crumpled gowns or soiled linen . . . They do not suffer from “gaposis” – a slash of bulging white shirt across the abdomen between vest and belt buckle. Their gowns fit; they are neat and clean; they look as if they mean business. Lest you think the matter is too trivial for attention, let me quote from a wonderful little book – Advocacy: Views from the Bench, published in 1984 by Canada Law Book Inc. and authored by Robert F. Reid and Richard E. Holland, two giants on the Ontario High Court bench in the 1970s:
“Successful counsel look successful. They look the part. They do not wear crumpled gowns or soiled linen . . . They do not suffer from “gaposis” – a slash of bulging white shirt across the abdomen between vest and belt buckle. Their gowns fit; they are neat and clean; they look as if they mean business.
If you do not believe this go to court and watch the good counsel. You will see exceptions, but the exceptions are so good at their job that they can afford to ignore the dress code a little. They do not ignore it much. Walter Williston was sometimes a little rumpled, but everyone knew he had probably been up all night honing his argument. You will be permitted to play with the standards a little when you are that good. I do not propose to analyse the connection between proper dress and success, but it is there. One judge has a test. It is called ‘droopy-tab syndrome’. When he sees counsel in a set of wrinkled, floppy, soiled tabs he makes a mental note born of long experience: do not expect much from this one. He is not always right, but you would be surprised at how often he is . . . (Another judge once called counsel into his chambers and gave him a set of clean tabs.)
It is rarely of benefit for counsel to emulate the slept-in look. Ours is a superficial society and so the way you dress in the courtroom counts.
The Honourable Lynne Stewart in the previous post
I can empathise with the comment about “not expecting to have been at court today”.
I have on a couple of occasions appeared in court in my ‘civvies’.
Once when I received a call asking if I could cover a warrant. As it happened I was very near the relevant court, so I popped in and explained to the usher that I would be back as soon as I’d gone home to put a suit on. She relayed that information to the DJ, who sent a message saying that as it was Friday afternoon he was more than happy to hear me in my shorts and T-shirt.
Similarly I once called into a court to see a prosector about an upcoming case. I was told they had decided to offer no evidence. Rather than all come back the next day, we went into court. Again I was in my scruff. I tried to be anonymous and sat right at the back of the court. But the judge asked why “Mr Robertshaw is lurking back there” and made me come forward. I dd apologise for my dress and he was quite understanding.
I do wear appropriate clothing most of the time I should stress.