How New York Judges Make Fashion Statements
Black is a color that goes with just about anything, an observation apparently made by some New York judges who dress up their robes with accessories. Other judges have spurned their robes altogether.
Judge ShawnDya Simpson has done both, the New York Times reports. Sometimes she wears a scarf or a necklace with her robe. One day she decided to preside instead in a lime-green suit.
“It’s a different era,” she told the Times. She is a former model and TV legal commentator who told the newspaper that she would not compromise her style to look more judicial.
Chief Judge Judith Kaye often wears a bow around her neck. Judge Bruce Allen only wears robes when in front of juries and often sports a “lucky tie” depicting the Sistine Chapel ceiling on Fridays. Supervising criminal court judge Melissa Jackson keeps her robe fully open and adds accents like the scarf she recently wore “that was a mix of electric blue and teal,” the story says.
Jackson told the Times that personalizing her robe allows defendants to see her “as another human being, not just another rubber-stamp automaton.”
