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12 Solo [i] (2006)

handle is hein.journals/sololoi12 and id is 1 raw text is: - .. 8 - L 6 * 6 - ,8 Comfrt-a 'Bench'mark for Court Attire? By Judith Stainbrook Just How Casual Can You Go When Meeting a Client? Have Carry-on, Will Travel It's All in the Bag Clad With Style started practicing law in the early 1970s in a small legal services program in upstate New York. We were the delayed wave of sixties lawyers who had brought the concept of law reform to the forefront. My man- aging attorney was trying hard to bring some respect- ability to our office by overcoming the unwashed radical image that had somewhat tarnished the office. Its founding fathers had gone to court wearing tee shirts that read F*** the Establishment. As part of that clean-up effort, the men kept sports coats in their offices to wear with their blue jeans if sud- denly called to court, or they sent me, the only woman lawyer in the coun- ty, because I always wore a skirt and skirts were pre- sumed to be safe, on women anyway. Who knew? In those days it didn't occur to me to wear a suit to court. Later, when more women began to enter fields that were tradition- ally male, we heard about power dressing. After that I deliberately avoided suits since it seemed to me that dressing like a man was not exactly the way to achieve equality with them, and that women could feel they had truly arrived when men began clamoring to wear skirts. It was, therefore, with shock that I read, and not so long ago, women lawyers were being chas- tised by some judges, both male and female, for wear- ing pantsuits to court. How (continued inside) )4