The Bow Tie Club for Law

Awhile back, the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog created the Bow Tie Club, an exclusive society made up of top lawyers, judges, etc. who have made the bow tie their own.

Following in Law Blog maestro Peter Lattman’s footsteps, let’s get some nominations in the comments section for a Maryland chapter of the Bow Tie Club.

There are a few obvious ones already, namely everyone’s favorite sartorially gifted state court chief judge, Court of Appeals Chief Judge Robert M. Bell (pictured at right with Fred Godman of The Daily Record). The chief judge even presented his Supreme Court counterpart, Chief Justice John Roberts, with a Maryland flag bow tie when Roberts spoke at the Maryland Judicial Conference last year. (Roberts accepted the gift and told Bell he’d wear it “on an appropriate occasion.” No word on whether that occasion ever presented itself.)

Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Larry Daniels should also be inducted into the club. Real estate attorney Ronald P. Fish, who passed away in June, would have made a wonderful charter member; when my colleague Brendan Kearney interviewed his friends and associates for an obituary (subscriber-only link), they told him that Fish was famous for his extensive bow tie collection, even possessing one in the shape of a fish.

The Daily Record’s own “Raising the Bar” columnist Paul Mark Sandler wrote (subscriber-only link) a few months ago that “[m]any lawyers avoid bow ties based on the belief that juries will not trust someone wearing a bow tie, but those who argue appellate cases or non-jury trials have no hesitation to wear them.” Is this true? Do any trial lawyers out there flout the conventional wisdom and wear that professorial accessory with pride before a jury?

Who else should be a part of our Maryland chapter?

-CARYN TAMBER, Daily Record Legal Affairs Reporter