I had the privilege of working with some of the best attorneys of my career during my tenure at the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach, California. Our director Toby Rothchild, besides overseeing all the activities of the Foundation on a daily basis, was an adjunct professor at Harvard Law School during the summer. Each term he took a hiatus to attend to his teaching duties at Harvard.

We had no shortage of exceptional legal minds in our little group. Our general counsel, graduated from Rutgers University and we had staff attorneys fresh from USC on our team. All of this to say that one could not ask for a better gathering of "legal eagles" than the Foundation had established.

The Foundation's legal team was a cerebral lot and ever focused on higher planes of learning. Their legal acumen was unsurpassed and they were indeed a force to be reckoned with in the legal community. However, when it came to fashion we seemed to have missed the trend setting boat. In fact, we not only missed it, but it would appear that it steamed right over us.

It is a well known and little disputed fact that, over the years, we at the Foundation had established a reputation as the place where terminal polyester and obnoxious plaids went to die. In our daily attempts to comply with local and state laws, which prohibited us from running around in our birthday suits, we at the Foundation had a rather cavalier and grab-bag approach toward our wardrobes.

With reckless abandon and total disregard for trends, we continued to get dressed half asleep, in the darkness of our closets, using the Braille Institute method of selection. This method never failed to produce outfits of distinction, e.g. ties that played music, shirts on acid trips - sport coats that looked as if they hauled portly tourist on their backs down the Grand Canyon in past lives and pants that literally spoke volumes.

If the preceding list of descriptive items seems to reveal a gender bias, that is because the most unique among us in this respect were male. While the women on staff at the Foundation actually dressed with much style and grace, their male counterparts subscribed to the laissez-faire approach to fashion (mixing and matching were strictly freeform and 'anything goes' was the motto of these learned gents).

It is well documented that in the animal kingdom the males of the species sport the most vibrant plumage or distinctive coats. The men at the Foundation were no exception to this rule. Without doubt they were the most colorful among us. In fact, they would rival the peacock and the parrots of the South American rain forests with their vibrant displays and color combinations. The only difference being that the parrots and peacocks were given their colors by nature and our gentlemen arrived at their combinations through freedom of choice - begging the question, when does such freedom cease to be freedom and become abuse? At the very least, their unique color selections coupled with bizarre geometric patterns, could send a fellow coworker screaming to the eye doctor in mortal fear of serious eye problems, not to mention seared retinas.

It was often noted that if we experienced an unexpected power outage in our offices we probably would not take notice, in that we usually had several incandescent outfits (with enough wattage to light a football stadium) roaming the halls at any given time.

I have fond memories of rushing around to help one of our dear male attorneys or the other get ready for a court appearance. They usually had coats and ties stashed for those spontaneous appearances in the local courts. Given their gross lack of fashion sense and taste I always felt as if I was sending Bozo the clown off to the center ring of the circus rather than to appear before the magistrate. It is with certainty I can say that everyone knew when a male attorney from Legal Aid was in the courtroom.

I decided that this unique lack of interest in style on the part of our male attorneys was actually a very clever strategy. After all if one looks as if the only accessory they need to complete an outfit is a half-empty wine bottle, how bright or effective could they possibly be as an attorney. I believe this was a wonderfully disarming mechanism for opposing counsel. While they thought they had an advantage from a proficiency standpoint, they quickly found out just how wrong they were once the proceedings got underway. The lesson was clear, do not judge a man by is lime green and purple tie or his puce and orange paisley shirt.

Over the years I came to realize that the men of the Foundation had their very own concept of 'pret-a-porter' (ready-to-wear), which might be seen as Gilligan's Island meets funky disco. So it was thumb our noses at the trends and styles of the day and cheekily exclaim eat your heart out Mr. Blackwell, we have this market cornered.

I believe the below quotes sum up the fashion philosophy to which the men at Legal Aid subscribed:

"I think, with suits and clothes, if you keep them long enough, they all come back in fashion." - Rod Stewart

"I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch." - Gilda Radner

"A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic." - George Bernard Shaw