The Gentleman Lawyer: Recession-Friendly Ways to Spruce Up Your Wardrobe

If you're an ardent follower of AbovetheLaw like I am, then you're well aware of the effect the recession has had on the legal market: dissolving firms, shortened summer associateships, rescinded offers, slashed pay, and layoffs galore.

It's enough to send the most confident law school gunner into a panic.

Times are tough, money is tight. You're probably not going to be buying any Brioni suits now. Hell, you're probably not even shopping at Men's Warehouse. You're probably rotating the same few suits you've had for a while and hoping they can stand up to the abuse of near-daily wear at your summer gig. But don't let your thin wallet keep you from sprucing up your look!

Here are a few recession friendly ways to keep your appearance top-notch.

Get Your Suits Properly Tailored
I harp on this point, but it's one of the most cost-effective ways to clean yourself up. Too often, off the rack suits have sleeves that are too long, jackets that fit like potato-sacks, and pants that drag on the ground. Take your trusty suits to a local tailor. Have them take up the sleeves so you show about 1/4" of cuff. It sounds like nothing, but it really does wonders for your professional appearance to have some shirt cuff peeking out. This goes for the ladies too.

Pants should break at the top of the shoe, traditionally. Get them taken up if they're a little too long.

And your tailor should be able to take in (suppress) the waist of most boxy jackets.

You'll exude Cary Grant in North by Northwest in no time.

Stop Dry Cleaning Your Suits and Shirts
Not only is dry cleaning expensive, it's hell on the construction and fabric of the suit.

Save yourself a boatload by simply hanging your suits in the bathroom while you shower. The steam will take out wrinkles and keep you looking snazzy.

Make sure you hang your suit properly after you wear it, and let it air out 24-48 hours between wearings. You shouldn't have to clean your suit more than once a season (if even that much).

Launder your shirts yourself (if you don't already). Get some Shout Gel for stubborn stains (collar and cuff stains come right out in the wash) wash them with detergent and fabric softener, then hang to dry. Iron while damp if you care to, or just hang them in the bathroom while you shower to get stubborn wrinkles out.

Inexpensive (Yet Classy) Accessories
Pocket squares recently made a big comeback - I blame MadMen - but I am glad they're now ubiquitous. For about $20, you can get a hand-made in American square from Kent Wang and add some color to your wardrobe. Don't worry about matching your tie - pocket squares should complement or accent a color therein. Have fun with it; it's one of the few fun accessories guys can wear.

Alternatively, try an inexpensive tie clip or lapel pin. They are all over eBay, often sold in lots, and many of them are vintage. For the price of one in a department store, you can end up with 5-10. Keep them or give them as unique gifts to friends

Don't Forget Your Feet
You can always pick up a colorful pair of socks, too. Granted, this might be a bit too dandyish for some, but throwing some surprise color into a drab outfit shows a little personality. You can pick socks up on sale cheaply at a Ralph Lauren store or a place like Daffy's in downtown Philadelphia.

And of course, keep your shoes polished. Yes, everyone will notice, even if they don't mention it.

That's it for the latest installment of the Gentleman Lawyer. Keep your heads up and brave the storm, we'll make it though!

I'll see you for the next installment: Khaki and Seersucker Professional Etiquette.

Obama Nominates Sotomayor for SCOTUS Seat

I admittedly know nothing about Judge Sotomayor. However, having now browsed NPR's and CATO's (here and here) takes on the nomination, I am a little worried about where this nomination is going to take the country. Granted, I love NPR, but I know that their politics are 180 degrees from mine, so I am giving CATO's take a little more weight at the moment.

Under Bush, we had a huge increase in federal power over civil liberties; and under Obama so far, the government seems to be taking an ownership stake in every American industry as well as spending irresponsible amounts of money. If Sotomayor is the champion of Obama's ideology, I am concerned for the future of American economic and civil liberties. The last thing we need right now is more judicial deference to the federal government, constitutionally speaking.

What concerns me as well is CATO's assertion that Sotomayor is considered the most "radical" of the list of candidates that was before Obama. I have no way to know this right now, but I will certainly be paying attention to the continuing coverage over the next days to try and learn some more about Sotomayor.

Of course, I really expected nothing less from Obama. The fact that he picked a minority woman is hardly surprising - I welcome a more diverse SCOTUS. I still worry about what her take on the Constitution will be. I expect that my worries will soon be substantiated.

Obama to Cut $100 Million - A Visual Representation

I found this on the Volokh Conspiracy. Very interesting.

The latest on this prom nonsense out of Ohio

Poor, poor kid.

FINDLAY, Ohio – An Ohio teenager says he expects to be suspended from a Christian school for attending apublic school prom with his girlfriend.

Officials at Heritage Christian School in Findlay had warned 17-year-old Tyler Frost that he would be suspended and prohibited from attending graduation if he went to the Saturday dance. The fundamentalist Baptist school in northwest Ohio forbids dancing, rock music and hand holding.

Frost says he went to the dance because he wanted to experience the prom and didn't think it was wrong.

School officials say he could complete his final exams separately to receive a diploma.

Frost's stepfather says the rules shouldn't apply outside of school and he may take legal action if Frost is suspended.

Barnett on the Federalism Amendment

h/t from by main man Randy Barnett at Volokh. Need to become POTUS at 37 so I can appoint him to SCOTUS.

Here is Randy Barnett talking to Glenn Reynolds about his Federalism amendment. Cool stuff. I can do without Reynolds, but anything with RB is worth watching...

I wanted to embed the video, but couldn't find the link for it. FAIL.

Is the world conspiring against Frosts?

Ha. Poor kid. Eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man!

No comment otherwise. This speaks for itself. Unbelievable. Sunlight is the best disinfectant...

FINDLAY, Ohio – A student at a fundamentalist Baptist school that forbids dancing, rock music, hand-holding and kissing will be suspended if he takes his girlfriend to her public high school prom, his principal said.

Despite the warning, 17-year-old Tyler Frost, who has never been to a dance before, said he plans to attend Findlay High School's prom Saturday.

Frost, a senior at Heritage Christian School in northwest Ohio, agreed to the school's rules when he signed a statement of cooperation at the beginning of the year, principal Tim England said.

The teen, who is scheduled to receive his diploma May 24, would be suspended from classes and receive an "incomplete" on remaining assignments, England said. Frost also would not be permitted to attend graduation but would get a diploma once he completes final exams. If Frost is involved with alcohol or sex at the prom, he will be expelled, England said.

Frost's stepfather Stephan Johnson said the school's rules should not apply outside the classroom.

"He deserves to wear that cap and gown," Johnson said.

Frost said he thought he had handled the situation properly. Findlay requires students from other schools attending the prom to get a signature from their principal, which Frost did.

"I expected a short lecture about making the right decisions and not doing something stupid," Frost said. "I thought I would get his signature and that would be the end."

England acknowledged signing the form but warned Frost there would be consequences if he attended the dance. England then took the issue to a school committee made up of church members, who decided to threaten Frost with suspension.

"In life, we constantly make decisions whether we are going to please self or please God. (Frost) chose one path, and the school committee chose the other," England said.

The handbook for the 84-student Christian school says rock music "is part of the counterculture which seeks to implant seeds of rebellion in young people's hearts and minds."

England said Frost's family should not be surprised by the school's position.

"For the parents to claim any injustice regarding this issue is at best forgetful and at worst disingenuous," he said. "It is our hope that the student and his parents will abide by the policies they have already agreed to."

The principal at Findlay High School, whose graduates include Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, said he respects, but does not agree with, Heritage Christian School's view of prom.

"I don't see (dancing and rock music) as immoral acts," Craig Kupferberg said.

Some outside thoughts on the Savage, Phelps, et al ban...

Via Glenn Greenwald:

Even now, right here in the U.S., the Patriot Act explicitly allows the U.S. Government to ban individuals from entering the country on the ground that the individual "endorses or espouses" -- not engages in -- what government officials believe to be "terrorism."  That provision is a purely ideological exclusion that the State Department insists allows it to ban anyone engaged in what it deems to be "irresponsible expression" of ideas. 

That provision has been used to bar numerous individuals (mostly Muslims) from entering the U.S.  Most notably, it is being used still to ban a Swiss intellectual and leading scholar of the Muslim world, Tariq Ramadan, from assuming a tenured teaching position at the University of Notre Dame and from accepting invitations to address various audiences inside the United States -- even though Ramadan had entered the U.S. more than 20 times in the past without incident, is widely considered to be a moderate Muslim scholar, and has explicitly and repeatedly denounced terrorism.  The Bush administration baldly acknowledged at first that it was banning him on ideological grounds, only thereafter changing its story by pointing to a $1,300 contribution Ramadan made to a Swiss charity that thereafter was placed on a U.S. government list of organizations that allegedly support Hamas.  As Daphne Evitar documented, the ideology-based barring of Ramadan is consistent with a long line of similar exclusions by the U.S.:

Such “ideological exclusion” dates back to the Cold War, the groups note, when the United States refused entry to leading scholars, writers and activists, including Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, Italian playwright Dario Fo, British novelist Doris Lessing and Canadian writer and environmentalist Farley Mowat.

While numerous groups of American scholars have urged the Obama administration to lift the ban on Ramadan, and while the ACLU -- an organization actually devoted to a genuine belief in free expression -- continues to challenge the constitutionality of Ramadan's Patriot-Act-based exclusion from the U.S., the pretend Mark Steyn free speech movement either remains silent or, worse, explicitly endorses these viewpoint-based punishments.  That's because they are perfectly content with liberty abridgments as long as they're directed at the right people.

Evidence of my earlier claim

Blacklisted people in Britain

The gun two posts below was pointing directly at my head, which was disconcerting. So I'll post and move it lower.

This, out of Great Britain, is a little disconcerting as well. Probably no one reading this has any sympathy with the views these people hold (particularly the odious Fred Phelps), but I think its always worrisome when governments use their coercive powers to suppress speech. Call me a Meiklejohnian, I guess. From the article...

"I think it's important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it's a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won't be welcome in this country," she said.

"If you can't live by the rules that we live by ... we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded," she told the GMTV broadcaster.

Between October and April the Home Office excluded 22 people for "fostering extremism or hatred" included preachers Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal, Yunis Al Astal and Amir Siddique, said a Home Office statement.

Hamas MP Yunis Al-Astal, Jewish extremist Mike Guzovsky, former Ku Klux Klan leader Stephen Donald Black and neo-Nazi Erich Gliebe are also on the list, as is controversial radio host Michael Alan Weiner, also known as Michael Savage.

Others blacklisted include homophobic US pastor Fred Waldron Phelps, as well as Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, former leaders of a violent Russian skinhead gang which committed 20 racially motivated murders.