English Judicial System Wigs Out
Fashion news from across the pond: English judges and barristers are leaping willy-nilly into the nineteenth century, shedding the curly horse-hair wigs that have symbolized the British legal system for centuries.
(Memo to Lat: Explore possibility of haircut for ATL logo-thing.)
The wigs are being removed despite their popularity with the public, who like to be represented by “a proper lawyer with a wig.”
But many others despise wigs as hot, smelly, and more to the point, elitist - they make all too obvious the caste system in British law, dividing the more numerous solicitors, who do most of the day-to-day work of representing clients, from the more prestigious barristers, who for centuries had a monopoly on the right to speak (and to wear a wig) in court. These days the functional distinction between the two kinds of lawyer is eroding, and the solicitors, at least, want the sartorial distinction to vanish as well.
We’re torn. Elitism is of course fabulous, but “smelly” is not.
Judges in criminal cases will keep their wigs, because … well, we have no idea why, really.
(15) 
Comments
I totally dig the wigs...though I bet they DO smell like a mixture of urine, sweat, mothballs, and cigarettes.
Booo!
Judges in criminal cases will keep their wigs for the same reason judges here who don't always wear robes to work will always do so in criminal cases: to project the popular image of the law over the proceedings.
Laurie Lin, soooo much better than Merck
Even funnier than the image of these stuffy barristers wearing wigs... is the image of them wearing wigs with rollers in the morning to get those beautiful curls.
I never thought of the class distinction there. As the American equivalent of a solicitor, perhaps I ought to have more sympathy with my brethren across the Pond. On the other hand, it seems like litigators, while in court, are the only American lawyers who still have to wear a tie--an equally unnecessary, and increasingly rare (at least everywhere but Cravath) accessory.
"On the other hand, it seems like litigators, while in court, are the only American lawyers who still have to wear a tie--an equally unnecessary, and increasingly rare (at least everywhere but Cravath) accessory."
You must practice law in Pago Pago or something where it's too hot to wear a tie. Most lawyers I know in my practice never meet a client or take a depo without a tie...
3:06,
As a transactional attorney you never wear a tie? I wear ties quite often for meetings with other parties and clients. Usually everyone wear ties, lawyers, bankers and the client (although some non-NY operating company clients do not always wear ties, as other regions like Texas are less formal and more laid back than NYC).
I prefer business dress (suit & tie) to "business casual." If I wanted to wear khakis and and oxford or polo to work everyday, I'd have foregone law school and taken a job at the Gap.
3:26, Newsflash: Wearing a suit doesn't make you any better a lawyer. In my office, which is business casual, if there are no clients to meet and no one else important coming in to visit, there's no need to look fancy for each other.
Although if you prefer to wear a suit and tie everyday, g-d bless.
3:50, Does Gap have their fall khakis in yet?
Noooo!
Do any of you business-dress-obsessed fuckwads work in the Bay Area? Obviously, no, although if you want I am sure that we can throw you a few slip and fall cases that our neighbors have. Seriously, once you make your first ten million you never have to wear a tie in your life again ever if you don't want to.
Re: Bay area lawyers without ties.
Just one of the reasons we East Coast folks don't take any of you fart-sniffing Bay Area guys seriously.
The original article seems to say that the new rule applies to judges in civil cases. It doesn't say anything about advocates not wearing wigs. Am I missing something?