Legal Research

Ever wonder why law graduates wear purple?  In honor of his university's graduation, Dave Hoffman at Temple re-posted his thoughts at Concurring Opinions on the origin of purple academic regalia and law:

Interestingly, the dominant theory seems to be that academic dress recalls an era where laws flowed from the King:  purple symbolizes lawyer's roots as agents of the sovereign. And it is true that of the professions, the one with the closest tie with the institutions of state sanctioned force remains law. But you've got to wonder why the folks who codified academic dress in the U.S. decided to tie themselves to an idea of legal rules that evoked royalty...

(Link is to the original 2006 post, which contains some interesting comments as well.)