Getting shirty over dress code

Max Steuer, a New York lawyer of the early 20th century, often handed out advice to young advocates. One piece was ‘don’t wear a fur coat and an air of importance’. Today, that advice could translate as ‘don’t wear ostentatious jewellery’.

When I first started in the law, dress in court was all-important. James Cartwright, who was at the bar for 50 years, reminded me the other day of the dress code of the time. Apparently the recorder of Cambridge refused to hear him because he was wearing a pink shirt under his collar and tabs. He relented only when Cartwright explained that his wife had put a white shirt in the dark wash and it had become discoloured.

Even in the magistrates’ courts, certainly in the stipes, there was a strict dress code. Arthur Kemp wore a wing collar at Old Street.

I remember at Marlborough Street seeing my friend, the giant Irishman David Sarch, appearing one morning in a Prince of Wales check suit and the magistrate – I think it was St John Harmsworth – refusing to hear him. It was another chance to go through the old music hall routine with Harmsworth saying he couldn’t hear Sarch in the small room. Sarch raised his voice and Harmsworth said, ‘it’s no use speaking louder, Mr Sarch, I still won’t be able to hear you’.

I nearly fell foul of the same problem when I appeared in the Chancery Division. Just after I qualified, I was sent on what Simpson thought was a hearing in chambers but which turned out to be in open court. I never had a gown. When I made a rare appearance in the local county court, the usher would rent his spare for five shillings, always making sure there was a gap between cases so that it could be used several times in a morning.

Anyway, I had no right of audience. It was too late to do anything but brazen things out and so I stood and apologised, saying, ‘I don’t suppose you can hear me, my Lord’?

‘Faintly, Mr Morton, only faintly,’ was the unexpectedly genial reply.  

James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor