Thoughts on Women Attorneys and the Conundrum of Appearance

I was sworn in by the late Judge Clinton Foster in September 1994.  My husband, Bob, was two years ahead of me in law school and was working as an assistant public defender.  Bob's entire case load was on Judge Foster's docket so Bob asked Judge Foster to do the honors when I got my bar exam results.

After the pictures and congratulations he told me to "make an appointment with my girl and come talk to me. I'd like to give you the benefit of my 40 years of practicing law."  So I did.  Judge Foster had a lot of good advice that day, but the one thing he said that has stuck with me for 19 years is this:

"Let me tell you how I feel.  

The thing I hate to see the most is a

 woman attorney trying to act like a man."

You are probably thinking that this was an awful thing for him to say and it was (I'm sorry Judge Foster!):  it is sexist, for starters.  But don't beat up Judge Foster too much.*  For all the faults to be parceled from what he said, this bit of our conversation remains to this day to be one of the best lessons I have ever learned about the practice of law.

Whenever I have a conversation with a new woman attorney, I always tell this story.  Why?  Because it illustrates the main concept that influences how I present myself every day as an attorney.

Dress for your audience.

As an attorney, it doesn't matter how you feel about how you look for court.  How you feel is totally irrelevant.   You are there to do a job:  if you are in the courtroom or chambers it is to convince the judge to do what your client wants or needs.  If it is in trial, it is to convince the jury to see the facts your way and the judge to see the law the way that best benefits your client.  In the negotiation room, it can be any of a number of goals depending on the particular dynamic.  Meeting with clients? You want to develop a good rapport and impress them without being unapproachable.

Does it matter how you look when you are doing your job?  I'm sorry but yes, it does.  That is life. Everyone is influenced by the appearance of the people around them. I cringe when I hear younger women attorneys talk about how they are going to dress like they want and force everyone to deal with it.  That's a nice sentiment.  I guess.  But this isn't Utopia, and our jobs as attorneys is to persuade. We teach our children that they shouldn't judge a book by its cover but the truth is that we all do it to some extent.  Maybe not "judging" but we are influenced by how we perceive other's appearance.  My goal with my appearance is always to wring the maximum benefit out of it in any given situation.  If you are not doing that, for whatever reason, are you really doing your job well?  I don't think so.  I think you are letting a major advantage pass you by, and maybe hurting your client in the process.

Early in my career someone told me that the late Judge Bower's father was a "holiness" preacher.  I don't know if that is true, but from that point on I wore only demure "Sunday" dresses or the rare dress and blazer combination in his courtroom. Same goes for Judge Foster.  Both of our recently retired female judges were very sharp dressers, so I always made sure that my look was totally on point when I had court with Judge Costello or Judge Pittman. A law school classmate of mine was recently appointed to the circuit court. When I eventually have court before Judge Gay you may rest assured I will be wearing my best and that it will also be my most fashion forward because Shonna Gay knows her clothes and shoes.  I know a private criminal defense attorney who once made her fabulous hot pink high heels the centerpiece of her closing argument.  She won because she has skills not because the jury liked her shoes, but the point remains that she made an argument using the shoes on her feet to persuade the jury to come back not guilty.

This is not a concept that only works for (or against) women.  Men do it too, it is just easier for them. Basically, all men need to do is wear a suit and tie, get a good hair cut, keep up their basic personal hygiene.  Beyond that, throw away the clown ties (personal pet peeve) and buy some decent shoes. Depending on the situation, tone it down. If you work for the public defender, maybe don't wear a $1,000 suit.  Simple things, really.

My advice to women attorneys is ignore all the "how to dress" type articles out there. Don't even read them, all I ever do is get mad when I do. Invariably, another woman has made a list which consists of: Wear a skirt.  Put your hair up.  Don't wear pants. Wear hosiery.  Wear makeup, but not too much (you'll look aggressive/slutty/frivolous/stupid) or too little (you'll look dowdy and no one likes a sexless spinster).  Wear enough make up so you look "put together" or "polished" and above all else, "natural."  Wear heels, but not too high because that's slutty and not too short because that's dowdy. Look attractive and soft but not too soft because you have to look serious and above all, don't look "manly" because the death of your career is some man thinking you are too aggressive.  Make sure you look "feminine." Don't look trendy but don't dress dowdy either.

Who has time for that?  Not me.

For women attorneys, there's a lot more to consider with respect to our appearance, and there is no one foolproof suit we can wear that works for any situation.  So, I start every day with a review of who I'm going to interact with and how.  When in doubt, I go for the more conservative clothes, hair and makeup.  For shoes (my favorite part), in addition to the above considerations, I think about comfort and whether or not I can wear them all day if that is on the agenda.

In the end, I think women attorneys have an advantage here, however subtle.

My advice is this:  use it.

Julie

*I loved Judge Foster to pieces and the point of this post is not to run him down in any way.  He was a great jurist and attorney, and a good, decent human being. So please do not judge him by this one anecdote.  He always did what he thought was the right thing, even when it wasn't popular or easy. He once found a couple suffering from AIDS guilty of cultivating marijuana (which back then was used to alleviate the side effects of the medications) and rejected their defense of medical necessity.  He withheld adjudication, and sentenced them to one year of unsupervised probation and 500 hours of community service only to be discharged by rendering "care, comfort and concern to each other."  The sum of Judge Foster's character was made of way more than this one off the cuff comment he made to me in the Fall of 1994.

Copyright 2013 Julie Ann Sombathy All Rights Reserved