PROF. BAINBRIDGE: Should Law Professors Dress for Success?

I always wear a suit and tie on the first day of the semester, and the reasons are aptly captured here:

We showed up at law school many years ago not really knowing what to expect. But our civil procedure professor — Richard Friedman at Michigan — showed up on the first day dressed in a suit. It made a helpful impression on us — an impression not so much about Friedman but law school generally. It made us sit up and say to ourselves, ‘oh, right. This ain’t undergrad. We’re being trained for a profession here.’ And that, in retrospect, wasn’t an entirely bad chord to strike early on, we thinks.

I do it out of respect. The rest of the time I generally wear nice pants, a polo shirt, and a nice sportcoat or something like that. It’s a professional environment, and students need to be reminded of that.