Texas judge bans cowboy boots from court, and criminal-defense lawyers are up at arms. (Austin American-Statesman.)
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4 Comments
Dennis Potts
September 18, 2010 at 3:27 pm - Reply
Rules that are written and then not enforced or enforced unevenly do little more than breed a healthy and justifiable disrespect for the rule and the moron who wrote it.
Once again I went rogue and Facebooked with J. Kevin Madison on my own — actually he quipped that he was thinking about powdered wigs, but I told him that I thought they might be too itchy — plus we gals and Bob Costas pay so much to dye our roots a different color. But he has agreed to get rid of hosiery, which experts agree is non-absorbent and does not breathe, causing a stunning array of health problems. Yes, a baby lawyer took this issue all the way to the — newspaper. I saw this kid today, with his very shiny boots. Kevin said if anybody had just come up to him and said, hey, Madison, you are using Travis County Courthouse rules from the 1990s, he would have gladly obliged in changing same. I was told by local bar leaders in the 1990s that “we expect our female lawyers to behave like ladies,” which I guess means wearing unflattering hairstyles, hosiery, and what appear to be old lady/old style nursing shoes — and no felony trials unless you are a man (or hanging onto his arm).
Dennis Potts
September 21, 2010 at 6:54 pm - Reply
Here’s the thing . . . It’s not other peoples’ responsibility to say, “Hey, Madison, you’re making an ass of yourself!” Madison imposed the rules, so it’s Madison’s responsibility to: (a) have the uncommon sense to actually read the rules before imposing them (a minimal effort which alone might have alerted him to the rich irony of the provision in question); and (b) review the rules every once in a while.
You’re right — he should have read them. And while it is no excuse that these crappy rules exist everywhere (like one judge’s “no briefcases on counsel table” policy in the NDTX), I think the bigger point Mark may have been alluding to is that this is the stuff that ACDLA gets riled up about — whereas the local ruling political party’s ownership of the local courthouse for 30+ years — giving any moron they may choose a criminal bench or a prosecutor gig — is something we all just need to put up with — ACDLA has never let its members conduct a judicial poll, leaving the determination of who is qualified to sit on a criminal bench to an organization composed mostly of civil lawyers. But cowboy drag is sacrosanct — time to get out the guns!
Rules that are written and then not enforced or enforced unevenly do little more than breed a healthy and justifiable disrespect for the rule and the moron who wrote it.
Once again I went rogue and Facebooked with J. Kevin Madison on my own — actually he quipped that he was thinking about powdered wigs, but I told him that I thought they might be too itchy — plus we gals and Bob Costas pay so much to dye our roots a different color. But he has agreed to get rid of hosiery, which experts agree is non-absorbent and does not breathe, causing a stunning array of health problems. Yes, a baby lawyer took this issue all the way to the — newspaper. I saw this kid today, with his very shiny boots. Kevin said if anybody had just come up to him and said, hey, Madison, you are using Travis County Courthouse rules from the 1990s, he would have gladly obliged in changing same. I was told by local bar leaders in the 1990s that “we expect our female lawyers to behave like ladies,” which I guess means wearing unflattering hairstyles, hosiery, and what appear to be old lady/old style nursing shoes — and no felony trials unless you are a man (or hanging onto his arm).
Here’s the thing . . . It’s not other peoples’ responsibility to say, “Hey, Madison, you’re making an ass of yourself!” Madison imposed the rules, so it’s Madison’s responsibility to: (a) have the uncommon sense to actually read the rules before imposing them (a minimal effort which alone might have alerted him to the rich irony of the provision in question); and (b) review the rules every once in a while.
You’re right — he should have read them. And while it is no excuse that these crappy rules exist everywhere (like one judge’s “no briefcases on counsel table” policy in the NDTX), I think the bigger point Mark may have been alluding to is that this is the stuff that ACDLA gets riled up about — whereas the local ruling political party’s ownership of the local courthouse for 30+ years — giving any moron they may choose a criminal bench or a prosecutor gig — is something we all just need to put up with — ACDLA has never let its members conduct a judicial poll, leaving the determination of who is qualified to sit on a criminal bench to an organization composed mostly of civil lawyers. But cowboy drag is sacrosanct — time to get out the guns!