Fashion victim

Everyone wants to look cute when they get divorced. When I used to go to court many years ago for my clients' decree nisi of divorce to be pronounced it always astonished me how clients would dress up for the event. Men would invariably wear their smartest suit and tie and women would wear their best frocks and heels. Was this to show their soon-to-be former partner what they were losing?

These days of course nobody bothers to attend the death knell of their marriage and the decree nisi is usually pronounced in the client's absence. Nevertheless, financial hearings still allow the clients to strut their stuff and even arguments over residence and contact can result in opposing factions dressing up for the day.

Clients before a trial will often ask the question: 'What shall I wear?' Us lawyers forget that we know what to wear in court, but clients may never have been in a courtroom before and they do not know what appropriate attire is. Clients want to know whether they should avoid being classified as 'rich' (especially if they are being sued) and perhaps err on the scruffy side of fashion. On the other hand, clients do not wish to offend the court and most dress in appropriate, smart-casual clothing. As a young articled clerk, I did not receive any training at all as to what to wear to court, although I normally trundled along in my suit and hoped for the best.

Nevertheless, on one occasion I had a hearing in a magistrates' court on a Saturday morning and, because I was finely tuned like a Pavlovian dog not to wear a suit on Saturdays, I went along in my best jeans and jumper, only to be soundly admonished by the magistrate (I believe at Old Street Magistrates' Court) for my impertinence and discourtesy to the court. But nobody had told me that going to court on a Saturday meant you needed to wear a suit! We now have a dress code which trainee solicitors, paralegals and others that work for us,even sixth formers on work experience, are informed about.

While once the senior partner's daughter dared to attend court wearing a very short miniskirt and a crop top and chewing gum, that would no longer happen. Indeed, on that occasion, the judge took offence not to the miniskirt or the crop top, but dismissed the young lady from court for chewing gum.

Legal fashions themselves have changed over the years. Walking along Chancery Lane, no longer do we see barristers in their robes and those rather mysterious blue sacks that were slung nonchalantly over their shoulders for many years appear to have bitten the dust, and all one hears along Chancery Lane is the steady rumble of wheelie suitcases or sometimes the rather more thunderous roar of a pull-along suitcase where one of the wheels has come loose. The clients do not seem to like the fact that their advocates are less dressed up these days than they used to be. Clients want a bit of theatre. They are paying a lot of money for their trial and they want their advocates to look like advocates rather than just be-suited lawyers.

Office style

The dress code in the office is of course difficult. Will there come a day when lawyers stop wearing suits and ties? Certainly colleagues of mine in more media-orientated firms seem to take the view that a suit and a tie is just far too unfashionable '“ not what their particular sort of client expects. However, I know that if I step along my local high street on a Sunday in a leather jacket and jeans clients seem not to recognise me; whereas, if I stumble across them in my suit, they know immediately who I am and will do their best to pull me in to a corner for ten minutes' free advice.

Legal fashions in offices are of course easier for us guys. For the women it is different. Is it the clothes that women solicitors wear that make them look like lawyers? Should they be wearing suits or is smart-casual enough? Should all the matrimonial lawyers wear sharp designer suits like Fiona Shackleton, or is it simply their brain that the clients are buying rather than a clothes designer? We have come on a great deal since the days of Dickens where clerks sat on stools with their quill pens and lawyers invariably wore a uniform which singled them out as lawyers. Whether or not that development will continue and we will all simply dress down I do not know.

As one district judge said: 'To be radical you have to dress conservative.' At least my dog Cosmo has the right colour coat, but I am not sure that he would be seen dead in a horse hair wig. Mind you, clients have funny ideas about our office dog; one asked me recently as to whether 'he rode to hounds' and another asked if he was employed to nip the ankles of slow-paying clients'¦