By Karen Sutherland

Over 25 years ago, John T. Molloy wrote a book about dressing for success for women. It was praised for providing scientifically-backed guidance and lambasted as being sexist, depending on the reader’s perspective. To women like me entering the legal world in the early 1980s, guidance from John Molloy was better than no guidance at all, as there just weren’t that many female role models, at least not in most of the law firms that interviewed on campus. As a result of his influence, the less adventuresome amongst us wore navy suits with beige or ecru blouses, floppy bow ties, nude hosiery, and low-heeled, closed-toe, plain leather pumps. Minimal makeup and “helmet hair” (short and shellacked within an inch of its life) were also de rigueur.

As a hippie/bike mechanic, this sartorial standard came as quite a shock to my system. I kept the long hair (in a bun), scrubbed the bike grease out from under my nails, and spent a month’s salary on an interview suit, shirt, shoes, hose, handbag, tie, and pen and then spent quite some time learning to walk in a skirt and heels. I still don’t know if the outfit got me a job. I suspect I looked mighty uncomfortable in it, which was probably obvious to anyone interviewing me.

Things lightened up a bit by the late 1980s. Law schools were graduating more women, as were business and other professional schools. A wider variety of suits was available in the marketplace, and (thank goodness!) the idea that we needed to wear a bow tie faded somewhere along the line. However, I bought a double-breasted pink suit and wore it to a trial advocacy seminar on the hottest day of the year and found out in the post-argument critique of my mock trial that judges do not necessarily appreciate fashionable-looking suits on the attorneys that appear before them. This led to a double wardrobe, consisting of suits that were good enough for the office and a different set of suits (less comfortable, less interesting) to wear to court.

Then came pantsuits. I guess they were always there (I think Joan of Arc may have worn one), but their appearance in court caused some concern. For example, in 1999, King County Superior Court Judge Jeanette Burrage made headlines by informing two female attorneys who appeared before her that they could be sanctioned if they returned to her court in pants again. Judge Burrage expressed surprise at the strong negative reaction to her position. After consulting with her fellow judges, Judge Burrage graciously changed her position and decided not to sanction attorneys for wearing professional pantsuits, but made it be known that she would appreciate it if (female) attorneys showed their respect by wearing skirts or dresses. Judge Burrage subsequently lost her bid for re-election in 2000.

Casual day offered new challenges and the opportunity or necessity (depending on how you feel about shopping) to purchase yet another wardrobe for performing legal work. As it turns out, defining “business casual” is a lot like Justice Stewart’s famous statement about defining pornography: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it . . .” Jacobellis v. State of Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197, 84 S.Ct. 1676, 1683, 12 L. Ed. 2d 793 (1964)(concurring opinion). In other words, one lawyer’s idea of “casual” may be another lawyer’s idea of beachwear or sleepwear. Also, clothing that may look good on one gender or body type may not look quite as good on someone else, which may cause some discomfiture for attorneys whose office responsibilities include the role of fashion police.

Another causal day challenge is the tendency of clients (and, occasionally, judges) to desire face-to-face contact with an attorney on a day when the attorney is wearing jeans and a Hawaiian-print shirt in the office, which either requires explaining that it is casual day (which once caused a client to respond to me by saying, “Oh, does that mean your fees are going to be casual today too?”), keeping a set of professional clothes in the office or going home and changing.

Not surprisingly, when causal day hit the cultural radar screen, John Molloy responded with more advice for the professional woman, resulting in his 1996 tome New Women’s Dress for Success. It contains helpful advice such as: “In our latest survey, 93 percent of businessmen and 94 percent of businesswomen . . . assumed that women wearing jackets outranked women without jackets” (I assume they were wearing them with something other than shorts and flipflops), and “Hillary Clinton . . . made suits important again.” This book clearly resonates with somebody, as it received an average of three-and-a-half stars on Amazon.com.

So where does this leave us today? Perhaps with too many options. Wearing a suit may seem to be the safest bet, but have you ever tried to run from the Third Avenue entrance of the courthouse up the steps to the Clerk’s Office in heels and a straight skirt? Also, if your job includes field trips to landfills, fertilizer warehouses, etc., a suit just is not very practical, and/or may get you laughed at by your client as you crawl under his defective building/truck/equipment in your fancy clothes.

A safer middle ground may be to

keep a suit handy in case of emergencies, but wear what seems right for your location, audience and personal style, and ask a trusted friend with a professional job and a decent sense of fashion for an opinion if you’re in doubt.