What Do You Wear?

The Greatest American Lawyer goes after the Lawyernistas that want to impose work fashion on the profession, including us Third Wavers and carpet commuters.  He points out rightly that many law firms mandate the wearing of suits (hence the reason we call them "the suits").  When you go to a bar meetings the Lawyernistas are wearing suits.  GAL states that he has "concluded that lawyers are so stuck on the status quo, that they can’t even see beyond their own wardrobe. A suit to many lawyers is a validation of worth. A suit says, 'look at me, I’m a lawyer.' A suit is meant to intimidate. Having a nicer, more expensive suit than the other lawyer, puts you on top. Meeting with a client while wearing a suit immediately tells them how important you are. The right power tie can add an inch to your height and tell everyone that you are the most important person in the room".

I am beginning to think that the suit is becoming the American equivalent of the powdered wig.  In this day and age the requirement of wearing a powdered wig seem ridiculous to most people.  Yet they are worn in court by the barristers of England.  In fact, when the British government was contemplating allowing solicitors to merge practices with barristers, and allow solicitors to appear in court, I remember watching the barrister leading the opposition against allowing such a change on the news state that his government simply could not allow solicitors in court because they would not be allowed to wear the powdered wigs.

Some years ago, then Bankruptcy Judge Massie Tillman of Ft. Worth, Texas made national news when he entered an order requiring all men appearing in his Court to wear suits and requiring all women to wear dresses and skirts (and no women-like business suits), supposedly subject to contempt if they did not.  Nobody got into much of an uproar about men in suits (even though most debtors did not have suits), but, needless to say, in this Country it is never popular to tell a professional woman how to dress, and the powers that be were none to happy with Judge Tillman.  As a result of public pressure he vacated the order.

All of this begs the question, what do you wear?  GAL tells us that outside of court he wears jeans and a collared shirt.  As for me, around the office I most often wear Docker slacks and a pocket tee (I just need a pocket to keep things like my glasses).  I am also known to not wear shoes around the house.  On the rare occasion that I have to meet with another attorney or client outside of the courthouse, I switch my pocket tee for a collared shirt and I put on some shoes.

Do not think that the image of you at home is not a concern for others.  I participate in a lot of telephonic hearings in the various bankruptcy courts in Texas.  It is no secret that I work from home.  At a party I attended this became the subject of a conversation with one of the judges.  He finally told me that the image of me participating in these hearings from my home did not bother him; it was the image he had of me participating in these hearings while sitting around in boxer shorts and fuzzy house slippers that did.  My response was "what makes you assume that I wear anything", leaving the judge with a mental image I think he would rather not have.  I agree that I am one of those unfortunate souls that should not be caught naked in the privacy of his own home, but judges should not talk for they get to wear robes, and we are not allowed to ask what they are wearing underneath those choir dresses.  ("Judge, what are you wearing beneath that robe?  Boxers, briefs or a thong"?  Assuredly the bailiff will be taking you into custody).

And so it goes.