How do heels stack up in court?
May 22, 2008
This post on the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog raises lots of questions for female lawyers.
When it comes to court attire — especially in the footwear category — what’s appropriate? Is it more important to be comfortable or fashionable? Has a woman ever lost a motion or a trial because she was wearing flats, or is the impression footwear makes on judges and juries subtler than that? At what height do heels stop looking professional and start looking overdone and inappropriate for court?
The Philadelphia DA actually used to have a rule that the female lawyers who worked for her had to wear skirts to court. She finally caved in 2003. (Anyone else think the pants ban wouldn’t have lasted as long if the DA had been male?)
Are there lawyers or judges in Maryland who require their female subordinates to wear skirts, I wonder?
A campus police officer whose women’s self-defense program I wrote about in college used to say, if you can’t run in it if you have to, don’t wear it.
CARYN TAMBER, Legal Affairs Writer
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