Judges Call Short Skirts Out of Order
Judges object
By STEVE RHODES
Updated 9:52 AM CST, Thu, May 21, 2009
The courtroom is not an airplane, people!
That's the verdict of several chagrined Illinois judges meeting at a bar association meeting who opened up about being tired of lawyers appearing in their courtrooms dressed in gym clothes or really short skirts.
"Women come into court wearing 'skirts so short that there's no way they can sit down and blouses so short there's no way the judges wouldn't look,' said Judge Michael McCuskey, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois," the National Law Journal reports.
Bankruptcy judge Benjamin Goldgar, of the Northern District of Illinois, "said he wishes he could tell the female lawyer standing before him: 'I'd really like to pay attention to your argument'," NLJ reports.
Objection!
The judges' barbs weren't just aimed at female lawyers.
"Goldgar said that male attorneys who come before him with wacky ties, like those with lots of smiley faces, also cross the line of appropriateness."
Wow, tough judge.
The topic wasn't scheduled to be addressed at the bar association meeting, but U.S. District Court judge Joan Lefkow got the ball rolling when she mentioned she once "had an issue with one woman who had shown up for a court hearing in attire that looked as though she had stopped in 'on her way home from the gym'."
That lawyer still managed to win her case, but the law journal says that "Lefkow, a smart dresser a la Brooks Brothers, suggested that women lawyers consult Corporette, a fashion Web site one of her clerks had shown her."
Steve Rhodes usually edits The Beachwood Reporter while in sweat pants.
Copyright NBC Local Media
First Published: May 21, 2009 7:58 AM CST
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