My Look Does Not Define Me...Part 1

I had an interesting conversation with a lady yesterday.

After wearing a reasonable hole in my carpet over the weekend, I stopped by my local watering hole, that is, the guesthouse 5 houses from me. I joined a table filled with my usual crowd. This lady joined my table after about 5 minutes. As she walked up to me, she remarked, "Oh wow, platinum braids, how cool!" I responded courteously, "Thank you," and introduced myself. She went on to ask the gentleman seated next to me (who I had never met) what he does, and he said, "I am a lawyer." And then I perked up and said, "So am I." Then, I offered her and the gentleman my business card, cos that's what I do. I go out drinking with my business card. 

Anyway, it turns out the gentleman is a known lawyer with a partner who has a dad who served in The Hague as a judge. Small World. So while this lady was sitting there judging me, I turned to the gentlemen and told him where I had spent some parts of my summer. As we talked about it, this lady almost choked on her drink. She stopped us in between and asked me, "So wait, you're a lawyer? And you went to The Hague with other lawyers with your hair like that?" I nodded. In my mind I was wondering, was there supposed to be a dress code for lawyers my age. I told her: "I graduated in 1999 so...I've been doing this for a while." This made her even more stunned. "Not only are you a lawyer, you're a seasoned lawyer. And a brilliant one." 

She then confessed that when she remarked on my braids she thought I was a lady of a different profession but when she saw me with my glasses she thought, it might not be. I was too lazy to slip on my contacts so I guess the glasses helped dissuade her allusion. Then, she apologized profusely for jumping to conclusions. 

Nevertheless, are lawyers supposed to look a certain way? Are we supposed to be demure and pristine and nerdish? What constitutes the "lawyer look"? I have been so out of it, I might have forgotten. Even in America I joined the most conservative of companies but still was able to push the envelope with my hairstyles and dressing. That is, after I had changed the internal rules a bit. Hey...I'm the girl that wrote policies on work/life balance so we got to work from home, come to work a little later, flexible hours, have women groups, etc. That's the kind of lawyer I wanted to be and I am. If wearing different hairstyles makes me do my job well, who's to stop me? I also worked with American lawyers that sported full arm tattoos, long hair, grizzly beards, wore mini skirts to court. As long as the work was done, and trust me it was done, perfectly, then it didn't matter. So why do we have prejudices about how lawyers are supposed to look? Isn't your intelligence level supposed to be all that matters?