KEEP YOUR HAIR ON

Wigs in courts could be here to stay after a Bar Council survey showed overwhelming support for their retention for barristers in civil and family cases. The survey was carried out after the lord chief justice’s announcement in July that court dress worn by judges sitting in civil and family cases would be changed in January 2008. Judges sitting in these cases will wear a newly designed gown, but no wigs. The Bar Council received over 2,700 responses. Support for retention of the current full court dress was strongest for the higher courts (House of Lords, 64%), although 47% of respondents said it should also stay in the county court.