Men and earrings in court?

A current judicial extern Somewhere in Minnesota reports that men are, indeed, wearing earrings in the courthouse where he is working.

... as it happened I decided to take my earring out when I first visited chambers and met with my judge. I later noticed a few male defense attorneys wearing earrings (some attorneys had more than one per ear in fact), and one of the male clerks had an earring in one ear. I asked my clerk if wearing an earring would be acceptable and he assured me that it would be, and was actually a bit surprised that I had asked. I don't know if this scenario is portable to another courthouse, but based on my observations thus far it seems as if state trial courts are a bit less formal than I had imagined from the classroom.

NOTES:

1.     This student was absolutely correct to be conservative first.  In dress and demeanor, to err on the side of conservative is just plain smart.
2.     The "Earring Are OK Policy" may be particular to his courthouse.
3.     In the same way that women still must be careful about very short skirts, and in some courts they may still find that pants are frowned on by senior judges, guys and their earrings may still be fraught with peril.  Your judge may not mind, but your peril may lie with clients and juries, two groups whose opinions you value but cannot survey in advance.

Susan Gainen, University of Minnesota Law School