Judicial interest in the fashion sense of female lawyers is not a purely British phenomenon.

We read in the New York Times that a distinguished panel of US judges has been debating this vital issue. According to the newspaper, Judge Michael P McCuskey, chief judge of the Federal District Court for the Central District of Illinois, said that at law school moot competitions he had seen young women wearing ‘skirts so short there’s no way they can sit down and blouses so short there’s no way the judges wouldn’t look’.

Judge A Benjamin Goldgar of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois agreed that ‘titillating attire’ is ‘a huge problem’. You should not dress in court ‘as if it’s Saturday night and you’re going out to a party’, he said. In fairness, the newspaper reported that he was also unhappy with male lawyers sporting loud ties, some with designs like ‘smiley faces’.

Judge Virginia M Kendall of the Northern District of Illinois was applauded when she said that giving sartorial advice to young women in a law firm might not be such an issue if firms had more women as partners in the first place. And Susan J Koniak, a Boston University law professor, said she found the discussion absurd. If clothing in court is such a distraction, she said, men and women alike should just wear a burqa.