New Career Closet helps students to dress the part

Have you ever looked into your closet and lamented that you have nothing to wear?

That’s the situation some law students face as they outfit themselves for job interviews, summer legal internships or moot court competitions. Dressing professionally can be half the battle, but stretched-tight student budgets often have little room for clothes shopping.

It’s a problem that the School of Law and some Western New York jurists are tackling on a practical level with the opening of the school’s new Career Closet – racks of ready-to-wear professional clothing, available to any law student who needs them.

“This is something we’ve dreamed about for a long time,” says Lisa M. Patterson, associate dean for career services, who is organizing the effort in O’Brian Hall with the help of the UB Law Alumni Association. “Many of our students are working to make ends meet while they’re here, and we have many students who are the first professional or the first lawyer in their family. We want to be able to give them something they would otherwise have to purchase, but it’s also modeling for them what is appropriate attire for a lawyer.”

The first inventory for the Career Closet came last spring, after the school’s Domestic Violence Task Force conducted its annual clothing drive for women in domestic violence shelters. After the women choose their clothes, the leftovers typically go to Goodwill. But Patterson noticed skirts, dresses and jackets that would be perfectly appropriate in a courtroom, so they saved them.

Great minds think alike. At the same time, Hon. Tracey A. Bannister ’84, a state Supreme Court justice and a vice president of the UB Law Alumni Association, was talking with her colleagues about how to help students understand the basics of proper dress for court. It dawned on them that showing can be better than telling. Bannister rummaged in her own closet, then solicited donations from women judges in city, county and state courts through the local chapter of the National Association of Women Judges. The Law Alumni Association did the same, collecting donations from the members of its board of directors.

The contributions piled up, they carted them to O’Brian Hall, sorted them by size, and the Career Closet started to take shape.

“My car was constantly filled until I got a chance to drop them off,” Bannister says. “Partly the idea comes from my own experience. When you have to scrape up the money to go to school, it’s really hard to find the money to look good for these activities. You might be in moot court and trial technique or on a trial team, and sometimes you need more than one good outfit, you need several."

The closet was launched with a panel presentation moderated by Bannister and featuring three additional  New York State Supreme Court Justices, Hon. Donna M. Siwek '87, Hon. Shirley Troutman and Hon. Penny M. Wolfgang. In addition, Michael P. Daumen, Esq. ’74, former law clerk to Hon. Frank A. Sedita and Hon. Lenora B. Foote-Beavers ’97, Erie County Family Court Support Magistrate participated, offering students advice on navigating the transition from student to professional.

“We really didn’t know how it would work on a practical level," Bannister says, "but now it will be ongoing.” Bannister is also reaching out to local lawyers and jurists, hoping to get a whole lot more clothing into the Career Closet. (Prospective donors can call her chambers at 716-845-9492.) At this point the initiative stocks predominantly women’s clothes. Donations of men's suits, ties and dress shirts are especially needed.

Everyone loves a bargain, and students already have been poking through the racks of clothes. They even responded to a fashion crisis, Patterson says, when a student in one of the Law School’s clinics needed to appear for a court hearing but realized she had forgotten to wear a jacket that day. “We whisked her into where the clothes were,” Patterson says, “and she picked out a full outfit.”