So usually the question of what to wear for my editorial doesn't arise, and I can leave it to your imagination: when reading my words, what do you think I'm wearing?
But this is different. Because I'm recording this editorial comment, and so you can see me, for the first time I had to think: what should I wear?
Now, 10 to 15 years ago, at least here in London, none of this would have mattered. A male lawyer would wear a suit. And a shirt. And a tie. And female lawyers would wear the equivalent. Would I wear a dark grey suit or a dark blue suit? A white shirt or a single colour coloured shirt. That was it.
Today, at least in the United Kingdom, the rules have largely gone. Yes, tomorrow when I am in court, I will wear a suit – although that is an online hearing.
Does it matter what a lawyer wears? Should we dress according to our own feelings? Or those of our clients? Even when wearing a tie became optional – and I say optional, because when I started to work as a lawyer, there was a very clear dress code – if I was meeting a potential client for the first time, I'd wear a tie. Then in the dot com boom years at the turn of the century, which thinking about makes me feel very old, tech clients expected their tech lawyers to dress more like them – I never did go the full Motorhead t-shirt look – but banking clients expected their lawyer to look a bit like them – this applied to men and to women equally, although I suspect that women took a bit more care, at least than I ever did.
But does it matter? Does a lawyer's brain work better if dressed neatly and tidily? Does wearing a tie help one's brain function? Can a lawyer think properly in jeans? Are we just complying with what society thinks?
Personally, I'm dressed like this today, because by and large, this is sort of how I dress every day – it has become my uniform of choice in the office. And if you are only reading – rather than watching - this editorial, well, you'll never know what that means!