Does court dress reform herald Irvine the radical?

The perennially popular question of wigs and gowns reared its horse-hair covered head last week, to the delight of commentators.

Most papers took differing approaches to the Lord Chancellor's announcement of a consultation paper to test the public mood on courtroom garb.

The Daily Telegraph decided that it was a non-event and that any change was unlikely to happen for a long time: 'Judges may continue to wear 14th century robes and 19th century wigs for the forseeable future,' it stated (9 May).

The paper admitted that 'on balance, the survey of 500 court users and 1,500 members of the public found support for changing dress', but it stressed that 'there was no majority view on how this should be done' and concluded that change was unlikely to be in the offing: 'Legal costume seems resistant to change.'

However, The Guardian took a different attitude and saw the scrapping of wigs as practically a done deal.

'Wigs could soon become history,' it declared (9 May), 'after a survey found that two out of three people wanted them scrapped except in criminal cases.'

The Financial Times took a more sentimental view, mourning the loss of 'short barristers' wigs turned yellow from frequent acquaintance with cigar smoke', which hints at a somewhat Rumpolian view of the bar (9 May).

It then listed with a fashionista's affection the 'silk robes, black girdles, violet and red sashes, knee breeches, fur mantles, stockings and buckled shoes' which could also face the axe under the new proposals.

The Times decided not only that the abolition of wigs was inevitable, but also that it was officially a bad thing.

It thundered (6 May): 'First it was the elite award of Queen's Counsel...

this week it will be wigs and robes.

The Lord Chancellor is taking an axe to the legal profession's most famous landmarks and is threatening to consign them to history.'

Stressing Lord Irvine's comment that 'there is an appetite for change', the paper linked his recent intimation that 'the rank of QC may go' with the wig and court dress consultation, and asked the previously unthinkable question: 'Is the Lord Chancellor becoming radical?'

Whether or not Lord Irvine has the 'reforming bit between his teeth', the paper concluded that 'no doubt he would prefer a legacy that stripped the profession of wigs and Queen's Counsel rather than one that had dismantled the role of Lord Chancellor'.

Solicitor-advocates, be-wigged or not, are - according to the Financial Times - set to see a jump in their fortunes.

The advance of the solicitor-advocate 'has been slow' up until now, with just 1,376 solicitors taking higher rights of audience, 'and more than half this number can be found in the top ten City firms' (12 May).

When the idea of solicitor-advocates was first mooted in 1989, 'commentators predicted the demise of a divided legal profession', with barristers 'fading away' owing to solicitor-advocates' ability to provide 'greater efficiency and cost savings for clients'.

However, solicitor-advocates have made the snail-like progress because of the 'structure and functionality of their firms.' It is 'too expensive for the large commercial law firms to allow a partner or assistant to be in court for long periods - they have other clients to attend to who do not understand the lack of availability'.

This will soon change, the paper reckons, with the large City firms 'beginning to make advocacy one of the core skills required for junior litigators'.

City firm Norton Rose, which trains its own solicitor-advocates, has reduced its spending on external counsel by 50%.

All in all, a bad week for a soon-to-be-bald bar.

Sampson and Delilah, anyone?

Victoria MacCallum