London Fashion Week may have ended, but law firms still have clothes on the brain. City firm Pinsent Masons has scrapped its stringent corporate dress code – a two-page document warning against shorts, sun dresses and miniskirts – in favour of a more relaxed approach. Lawyers, it says, should ‘dress appropriately for their job, schedule and stakeholders’.

Pinsent Masons is not the first firm to abandon strict sartorial rules. Baker McKenzie now allows solicitors to wear jeans in the office, providing they are not meeting clients, Fieldfisher has dress-down Fridays and Eversheds Sutherland operates a smart-casual policy. Staff at Slaughter and May are encouraged to dress ‘in line with their gender identity and expression’ and Linklaters wants employees to ‘work comfortably in the workplace’. Obiter suspects, however, that we will not see lawyers slouching around in hoodies and Crocs any time soon. 

At least one set of London chambers bans barristers entering the premises wearing anything denim, whether or not they are going to court that day.

We’d be interested to see more examples of dress codes, ancient or modern, verbose or concise. Email obiter@lawsociety.org.uk. 

Topics