court dress

Definition of court dress

Further reading

Court dress comprises the style of clothes prescribed for courts of law, and formerly for royal courts.

Court dress in England and Wales

- Where court dress is worn

Court dress is worn at hearings in open court in all Senior Courts of England and Wales and in county courts. However, court dress may be dispensed with at the option of the judge, e.g. in very hot weather, and invariably where it may intimidate children, e.g. in the Family Division and at the trials of minors. In the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council counsel wear court dress, but their Lordships are dressed in conventional business attire.

Court dress is not worn at hearings in chambers and in the magistrates' courts.

- Advocates

English advocates (whether barristers or solicitors) who appear before a judge who is robed, or before the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom or Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, must themselves be robed.

All male advocates wear a white stiff wing collar with bands (two strips of linen about 5"/13 cm by 1"/25 mm hanging down the front of the neck). They also wear either a dark double-breasted suit (or with waistcoat if single-breasted) or a black coat and waistcoat and grey pinstriped trousers. The black coat and waistcoat can be combined into a single garment, which is simply a waistcoat with sleeves, known as a bar jacket or court waistcoat. Female advocates also wear a dark suit, but often wear bands attached to a collarette rather than a wing collar.

- Junior barristers

Junior barristers wear an open-fronted black gown with open sleeves, gathered and decorated with buttons and ribbons, and a gathered yoke, over a black or dark suit, hence the term stuffgownsman for juniors. In addition barristers wear a short horsehair wig with curls at the side and ties down the back.

- Solicitors

Solicitors wear the same wing collar with bands, or collarette, as barristers. Their gowns are of a slightly different style, with a square collar and without gathered sleeves. By virtue of the Consolidated Criminal Practice Direction at I.1.1 (as amended by Practice Direction (Court Dress) (No4) [2008] 1 WLR 257), "Solicitors and other advocates authoised under the Courts and Legal Servcies Act 1990...may wear short wigs in circumstances where they would be worn by Queen's Counsel or junior counsel."

- Queen's Counsel

Barristers or solicitors who have been appointed Queen's Counsel, or QCs, wear a silk gown with a flap collar and long closed sleeves (the arm opening is half-way up the sleeve). The QC's black coat, known as a court coat, is cut like 18th-century court dress, and the sleeve of the QC's court coat or bar jacket has a turnback cuff with three buttons across.

On ceremonial occasions QCs wear ceremonial dress.

- Judges

Until 2008, judges in the Family and Chancery divisions of the courts wore the same black silk gown and court coat or bar jacket as QCs, as did judges in the Court of Appeal. All judges wore a short bench wig when working in criminal court, reserving the long wig for ceremonial occasions, and a wing collar and bands.

From autumn 2008, judges in all civil and family cases began to wear a newly designed robe with no wig, collar or bands, over an ordinary business suit and tie, with the exception of circuit judges in the county court, who opted to retain their former style or robe, but without wig, wing collar and bands.

Members of the Judicial Committe of the House of Lords (or "Law Lords") and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council have never worn court dress at all (although advocates appearing before them do). Instead they were dressed in ordinary business clothing. Since the creation of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the Justices of that Court, being former Law Lords, have retained the Law Lords' tradition of sitting unrobed.

- High Court judges

Before autumn 2008, when dealing with first-instance criminal business in the winter, a High Court judge of the Queen's Bench Division wore a scarlet robe with fur facings, a black scarf and girdle (waistband) and a scarlet casting-hood or tippet. When dealing with criminal business in the summer, the judge wore a similar scarlet robe, but with silk rather than fur facings. In both cases, the judge wore a wing collar, bands, and a short wig. Since autumn 2008, only the winter style remains.

In civil cases before 2008, the judge wore in winter a black robe faced with fur, a black scarf and girdle and a scarlet tippet; in summer, a violet robe faced with silk, with the black scarf and girdle and scarlet tippet. However, from autumn 2008, in civil and family cases, the prescribed dress consists only of a robe of modern design over ordinary business clothing, with no wig, collar or bands.

- Circuit judges

Circuit judges (in the County courts or the Crown court) wear a violet robes with lilac facings. As well as a girdle, the judges wear a tippet (sash) over the left shoulder - lilac when dealing with civil business and red when dealing with crime. Since autumn 2008, circuit judges in the county count have not worn wigs, wing collars or bands; however, circuit judges in the Crown Court retain the wig, wing collars and bands.

- Special occasions

On red letter days (which include the Sovereign's birthday and certain saints' days), all judges wear the scarlet robe for the appropriate season.

On special ceremonial occasions (such as the opening of the legal year), circuit judges and QCs wear long wigs, black breeches and silk stockings, and wear lace jabots instead of bands. High court judges in addition have a scarlet and fur mantle. The Lord Chief Justice also wears the scarlet and fur mantle with a gold chain of office. The Lord Chancellor and judges of the Court of Appeal have black silk damask gowns heavily embellished with gold embroidery.

United States

- Judicial court dress

Today, generally judges of both state and federal courts are free to select their own courtroom attire. The most common choice is a plain black robe which covers the torso and legs, with sleeves. Female judges will sometimes add to the robe a plain white collar similar to that used in academic dress. Beneath the robes business attire is standard: a shirt and tie for men and a woman's suit and stockings for women.

Until the tenure of Chief Justice John Marshall, all Supreme Court justices wore red robes with ermine trim and full-bottomed wigs, reminiscent of British court dress. Marshall, however, eschewed this formality and began the practice of only wearing a black silk robe, with no wig. In 1994, Chief Justice William Rehnquist added four gold bars to each sleeve of his black robe, but the change in his attire (he had been Chief Justice since 1986) was his own innovation and was inspired by a production of the operetta Iolanthe, rather than any historical precedent. His successor, John G. Roberts, has returned to the practice of wearing a plain black robe.

Some Supreme Court justices (including Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer) maintain the ancient legal practice of wearing large black skullcaps, in their case when wearing their robes outdoors in cold weather (for example, at presidential inaugurations in January.)

Many state supreme court justices wear unique styles of robes, the most notable being the Maryland Court of Appeals, where all judges wear red, and British-style tab collars. The judge of the Delaware Superior Court continue to wear the red sashes or baldrics of their British predecessors, albeit now only on ceremonial occasions.

Some judges eschew special dress entirely and preside over their courts in normal business wear. This is often seen among administrative law judges who preside over relatively informal administrative hearings.

- Attorney court dress

"Professional" attire is the norm for attorneys appearing in court. Male attorneys generally favor dark-colored two-piece suits, which should be properly fitted, cleaned and pressed, with a tie, a white or light-colored shirt, and dress shoes. Women attorneys usually choose a medium-length skirt suit, with a conservative blouse and pumps. During the second-wave feminism movement in the 1970s, some judges forbade female attorneys from wearing trousers when appearing in court, but pantsuits are now widely accepted in most U.S. courts.

Like judges, American attorneys do not wear wigs.

The most significant exception to the practice of non-ceremonial court dress is the United States Solicitor General. Traditionally, when the Solicitor General (or any of the deputies at the U.S. Department of Justice) conduct oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, he wears morning dress, with striped trousers, grey ascot, waistcoat, and a cutaway morning coat. A feminized version is sometimes worn by female deputies, which consists of the same garments tailored to female measurements. Former Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the only woman to hold the office to date, appeared before the Court in pantsuits in lieu of morning dress. The traditional female equivalent of morning dress (a formal gown) is strictly for social purposes, so it would be inappropriate attire for appearances before the nation's highest court.