Some Britons wigging out at changes in courtroom garb
LONDON - Britain has long been a place where if someone asks why and the answer is, "Because we've been doing it that way for the last 800 years," the conversation is pretty much over.
So it is perhaps not surprising that the idea of ending the practice of outfitting judges and lawyers in curled wigs and tassled gowns has not been met with enthusiasm.
British lawyers have been arguing over the issue for most of the last 16 years, with a substantial majority apparently in favor of keeping things exactly as they have been.
With that in mind, Lord Chief Justice Nicholas Phillips figured that if he was going to take on 300 years of tradition, he had better do it in style. Last week, he unveiled the new robe that judges in the civil courts of England and Wales are expected to wear beginning in October, minus the traditional wing collar and minus the venerable white horsehair wig.
Judges, barristers, and solicitors will continue to sport traditional attire in criminal courts, where lawyers say it is important that defendants not be judged by their advocates' suits. But even there, wigs may already be on a long, slow road to oblivion.
The new continental-style outfit - featuring such innovations as pockets, snap fasteners, and color-coded bands, depending on the court - was conceived by celebrity fashion designer Betty Jackson, who once in another context described her clothing creations as "easy, fabulous, and gorgeous."
The fashionistas so far have not been wowed.
"If humanizing the judicial profession was the aim of this makeover, it is interesting that Betty Jackson decided that the outfit best suited for this would be one that looks like something an alien android with menacing religious undertones would wear when waging war with Doctor Who," sniffed the Guardian's deputy fashion editor, Hadley Freeman.
Lord Phillips, who says he is seeking to rid the public of any notion that judges are old-fashioned and out-of-touch, has admitted that not all his fellow jurists like the new outfit that much. But most do, he asserts, and he assumes the rest will get used to it.
The big question now is whether lawyers practicing in the civil courts can be persuaded to go along with the judges and abandon their wigs, which in survey after survey attorneys have indicated they cherish as much as truth itself.
"Of all the recent consultations which have gone out within the legal profession, this one has had the highest response, so it shows how important this is to lawyers," said Tan Ikram, president of the London Criminal Court Solicitors.
Criminal lawyers, he said, appreciate the anonymity afforded by everyone behind the bar wearing the same $1,590, forensic (or "of the law") wig and matching sober gown.
"It's important in the sense that if you're prosecuting or even defending, the color of your tie or the cut of your jacket matters not," Ikram said. "There are also issues of the formality of the occasion. You are in a courtroom, you are being questioned, you will tell the truth. . . . It is part of that historic symbolism of the state's authority."
The chief justice's new dress code for judges in the civil and family courts is not binding on lawyers, and the Bar Council is in the process of deciding how it will respond, said spokeswoman Samina Ansari.
Darren Horsman, a spokesman for the Royal Courts of Justice, said in the wake of the policy direction for judges, "it would be normal for [the lawyers] to follow."
Judges and lawyers already appear in normal business suits in most family law hearings held behind closed doors. 