Lighter side: Judge’s blog entry shock, “On being a dirty old man and how young women lawyers dress”

Using social media to give advice to your colleagues can backfire horribly, as a judge discovered when he took to his blog to tell female lawyers how to dress, in order to help "dirty old men" like himself.

BY Sophie Schroder 04 Jul 2014

A US district judge and epic blogger has posted a shocker of an entry entitled, “On being a dirty old man and how young women lawyers dress”.

In the entry, Judge Richard Kopf claims that men are both pigs and prudes, and seems to encourage female lawyers to dress more conservatively so as not to distract them.

“In candor, I have been a dirty old man ever since I was a very young man,” he writes.

Kopf then describes a “wonderfully talented and very pretty” female lawyer who works in his vicinity, listing a vast array of her professional attributes before also pointing out that she wears very short skirts and shows lots of her ample chest.

“I especially appreciate the last two attributes,” he says.

Evidently, the blog has been met with widespread criticism. One local columnist put it simply: “Ewwww”, while a Nebraska prosecutor seemed lost for words.

“Are you kidding me? This is a federal judge.”

Upon realising the storm in a teacup that had been created by his unclean musings, Kopf issued an apology, stating that he touched “the third rail” by writing about women, apparel and courtroom attire and the criticism generated was perfectly fair.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Kopf also indicated that the blog was supposed to be satirical.

“If, on balance, you think the post was harmful to the image of the federal judiciary and truly treated women as objects, I am very, very, very sorry for that, but I would ask you to pause and reread it. I hope you will find upon objective reflection that the mockery I make of myself and the hyperbole and somewhat mordant tone I employed, made a point worth considering,” the judge said.

Nominated by former President George H W Bush in 1992, Kopf launched his blog a year ago and had gained a following for his insights on the American judicial process and personal reflections.

A recent post discusses his cancer treatment for what he says is stage III Hodgkin’s lymphoma.