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Judge throws book character at lawyer’s fashion statement
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer//August 29, 2014
Judge throws book character at lawyer’s fashion statement
I’ve written in this space before about lawyers wearing seersucker. But here’s a new courtroom fashion statement courtesy of our friends across the Atlantic.
“A judge has reprimanded a [defense] lawyer for dressing ‘like something out of Harry Potter,'” reads the opening line of a story from Wales Online.
The lawyer, Alan Blacker, was wearing “colorful ribbons and badges on his gown,” which he claimed to have received from volunteering with a health care charity. Judge David Wynn Morgan was not amused.
“Here in South Wales, we had a barrister, who later became a judge, who, during the Battle of Normandy, was awarded the highest order of gallantry, the Victoria Cross,” Morgan said, according to Wales Online. “Did you ever see him wearing that medal? No. He would have considered it the height of vulgarity.”
He then told Blacker that if he ever wore the ribbons again, “I shall exercise my right to decline to hear you.” (Reports that Morgan added “I said Good day!” and walked off the bench could not be confirmed.)
Blacker told the British law blog Legal Cheek he was discussing the matters with his attorneys.
Lost in the wardrobe controversy is this important detail: Blacker was appearing in court “under what he describes as his hereditary aristocratic title of Lord Harley of Counsel,” according to Legal Cheek.
For more information about Blacker, I (highly) recommend you check out his LinkedIn profile.
(HT: Above the Law.)
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