Nova Scotia

Tattooed, pierced law school grad challenges dresscode norms

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share by Email

Mary Burnet, an articling clerk in Halifax, feared her appearance would turn off prospective employers

Mary Burnet, centre, with two colleagues from Pink Larkin. (Diane Slaunwhite/Pink Larkin)

A soon-to-be lawyer whose tattoos and piercings made her doubt her chances of getting a job is pushing back against norms surrounding professional dress codes and appearance.

Mary Burnet, an articling clerk at Halifax law firm Pink Larkin, said the assumption that someone is professional is often unfairly tied to what is conventionally considered to be a professional look.

"Professionalism [masquerades] as neutral when it's actually not," Burnet told CBC's Information Morning. "It's actually quite loaded and based in this particular idea of who belongs in this space, who belongs in this profession."

'Motivated by fear'

ADVERTISEMENT

Burnet said her employer is supportive of the way she chooses to present herself, which includes tattoos on her arms and hands, facial piercings and a hairstyle where half of her head is shaved. In a blog posted on the firm's website, Burnet said the messages she had received in day-to-day life and while attending law school at Dalhousie University made her worry about job prospects.

"Motivated by fear, I donned a skirt, nylons, a long-sleeved and high-collared shirt that covered all my tattoos, removed my facial piercings, and parted my hair on the other side of my head so as to appear more "professional," less queer, and less weird," she wrote.

Burnet told Information Morning that Dalhousie included advice on professional attire during sessions offered to students vying for highly competitive articling positions. Since articling is a necessary step to becoming a lawyer, Burnet said it was hard not to take the message of those sessions to heart.

"They would discuss with us what an appropriate appearance was, and it was clear that it was a pretty narrow definition ... based on heteronormativity, whiteness, class — being able to look a certain way to project that you were good at your work."

Women advised to wear skirts, nylons

During the sessions, said Burnet, women were advised to wear skirts and nylons. A video posted on Canadian Lawyer Magazine's website around the same time covered a professional development event for young female lawyers in which makeup and skin care were discussed.

Burnet said norms around professional dress — which can include the expectation of wearing expensive attire — don't just affect lawyers, but also their clients and self-represented litigants, who are becoming increasingly common.

ADVERTISEMENT

"The assumption [is] that if you want to look respectful, you do that by wearing expensive clothing," she said.

"If someone doesn't have the ability to purchase and maintain an expensive outfit, and there's often an unspoken assumption that that indicates their lack of respect for the legal institution or their lack of credibility, then that's a huge problem."

Balancing act

Burnet said for professionals seeking to challenge these notions, education and training in the workplace is a good place to start. However, she added it's a balancing act for lawyers who represent clients in the courtroom.

In court, Burnet said she covers her tattoos and sometimes removes her facial piercings because some clients do the same.

"If you're representing a client in court and you know that some of those unspoken assumptions exist, you want to do everything you can to reflect positively on your client," she said.

With files from CBC's Information Morning