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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 8892220" data-attributes="member: 20741">Oh I think that is definitely true. There have not been horsehair wigs anywhere here since... well ... I'm not sure they were ever formal court wear at any time, really. But counsel here all still gown, (robes and tabs) -- and "my Friend" "my Honourable Friend" and "my Learned Friend" are still observed in the courtroom at all times. If you don't, you will antagonize the hell out of the court.For a while in the early 2000s, we started to retreat from gowning requirements to make it less formal (and more comfortable) -- but those requirements have come back lately more than they ever have been in 50+ years. It may be at all time high now.  We gown when appearing in front of even those who were until recently referred to as Masters now (prothonotaries) which has never been case until now (now they are Associate Judges and are referred to as  "My Honour".  For that matter, judge are still "My Lord/Lady" in some Canadian provinces.What judges have always noticed is that the conduct of witnesses in the presence of gowned counsel is different; and when it comes to self-represented litigants, they seem to be more polite and observant of decorum with the court when there are a dozen counsel gowned waiting in the courtroom, too.Because legal costs have increased and the number of self-reps in our court has spiraled upwards over the past 15 years, gowning is being expanded in an attempt to keep incivility in our court rooms in check.[EDIT: To breathe further life into this painted picture, I am a litigator and I was last in a Toronto courtroom on February of 2020. Everything has been moved to Zoom since;  while criminal trials; some civil trials, appeals in the Court of Appeal and some long motions have moved back to in-person hearings -- the broad mass of all courtroom work, 90% on the civil side, is all via Zoom. I far prefer it that way; Metro Toronto is a city of 6.5m people and travel times are brutal. When it's on Zoom, my computer room is 20 feet from my bedroom. Travel time is ~10 seconds..So I OFTEN will gown in my own bedroom in the morning 15 mins before to attend at a case conference or other motion hearing via ZOOM, sit down in front of my computer for the hearing, and then when it's over, go back into my bedroom to take it all off. Except my track pants, that is. I just keep those on throughout. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ]</blockquote>

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