Judge Makes Talks On Being A ‘Dirty Old Man’ + Female Lawyers That Enter His Courtroom

Remember that once you hit the send button on a computer, it's hard to take it back. U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf learned this the hard way when he was posting to his personal blog this week.

He outlined how women should dress in the court room, especially because he is "a dirty old man".

I'm pretty sure that Kopf was trying to address the topic of the way that women should keep themselves properly dressed, especially in a professional manor. I say this because he starts off his blog about how he recently stopped his younger daughter from leaving the house for wearing inappropriate clothes to a wedding. The blog then transitioned to female lawyers in his courtroom and one in particular who "wears very short skirts and shows lots of her ample chest."

 

From the foregoing, and in my continuing effort to educate the bar, I have three rules that young women lawyers should follow when considering how to dress for court:

 

1. You can’t win. Men are both pigs and prudes. Get over it.

 

2. It is not about you. That goes double when you are appearing in front of a jury.

 

3. Think about the female law clerks. If they are likely to label you, like Jane Curtin, an ignorant sl** behind your back, tone it down.

"I do care passionately that federal trial judges be seen as individuals with all the strengths and weakness (baggage) that everyone else carries around. If, on balance, you think the post was harmful to the image of the federal judiciary and truly treated women as objects, I am very, very, very sorry for that, but I would ask you to pause and reread it. I hope you will find upon objective reflection that the mockery I make of myself and the hyperbole and somewhat mordant tone I employed, made a point worth considering."