NY/DC: Cartilage Piercings? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Would it be off-putting for a new associate to have cartilage piercings at your firm? For example, would a double helix piercing—i.e.,two tiny silver hoops at the top of the ear—be frowned upon? Or a mini stud?

I know the answer is yes for the courtroom, but in office? Additionally, would the answer be different for male vs. female associates?

[papermateflair]

I'm in DC, this is fairly common with younger female or nonbinary associates, so I can't imagine this mattering. I suppose if you were going to court you could cover it but it seems like a non-issue. I don't know that I've ever seen a male associate with this type of piercing, so I guess it would be something a little "different" that may turn the heads of some older folks or folks who have more rigid thinking on gender/appearance. I know firms used to have more rigid dress codes but I feel like things have loosened up post-COVID. If you're a male associate and have concerns, choose something as small and discreet as possible, or ask HR for a copy of the dress code.

[Anonymous User]

I’m a female, double judicial law clerk, and interviewed and received offers from DC firms, all while having two studs in my cartilage, never thought twice about it in front of my judges or interviewers tbh. I have never noticed whether a lawyer in court had cartilage piercings. You’re fine.

[Anonymous User]

I’m a female, double judicial law clerk, and interviewed and received offers from DC firms, all while having two studs in my cartilage, never thought twice about it in front of my judges or interviewers tbh. I have never noticed whether a lawyer in court had cartilage piercings. You’re fine.

What do people think about multiple piercings in the lower ear? I see a lot of women in law school wear three sets of small hoops, for example, not sure if I should take them out for interviews + then work

[emc91]

Lol, ear piercings? Stop being so anal. I have 8 piercings in each ear - all studs or simple hoops - and got offers from some of the most conservative firms in Texas. Work at one now with a nose ring (though I wouldn’t have gone through OCI with one).

Grow up. Come at me when you have a sleeve or a bar through your nose.

[hangtime813]

Lol, ear piercings? Stop being so anal. I have 8 piercings in each ear - all studs or simple hoops - and got offers from some of the most conservative firms in Texas. Work at one now with a nose ring (though I wouldn’t have gone through OCI with one).

Grow up. Come at me when you have a sleeve or a bar through your nose.

Agreed with this. Ear piercings for males or females are the least of anyone's worries in any state. I can see maybe huge tattoos being an eye brow raiser (especially if on the face/neck/head) or rainbow dyed hair, but other than that I dont think anyone would even notice.

[Anonymous User]

Depends on the firm? Every firm is different. At a more conservative firm, here are the people who can get away with piercings, IMO:

1) Physically attractive women.
2) "Diverse" applicants.

If you're not one of those they will think you have a screw loose. Piercings are a sign that you want to be out of the box and draw attention to yourself which may not work at some firms.

[Anonymous User]

I'm in a market that is less conservative than NY/DC but still a major market, and an associate I work with has 8 or so piercings in one of her ears. Nobody has ever mentioned it or been bothered by it (to my knowledge). She's an excellent associate, so it'd be a really stupid reason to alienate her.

[Anonymous User]

The way OP posed the question suggests they know it looks immature and stupid to older partners but want to ask if they can "get away" with it. You will make yourself look silly and it's not professional but no one's going to like step in and stop you.

[nixy]

The way OP posed the question suggests they know it looks immature and stupid to older partners but want to ask if they can "get away" with it. You will make yourself look silly and it's not professional but no one's going to like step in and stop you.

Lol that you had to post the above anon.

If someone otherwise presents themself professionally, two tiny hoops aren't going to destroy that, and especially not a tiny stud. Besides, if the OP has longer hair no one will even see the earrings if they're not looking really hard.

[Anonymous User]

The way OP posed the question suggests they know it looks immature and stupid to older partners but want to ask if they can "get away" with it. You will make yourself look silly and it's not professional but no one's going to like step in and stop you.

Lol that you had to post the above anon.

If someone otherwise presents themself professionally, two tiny hoops aren't going to destroy that, and especially not a tiny stud. Besides, if the OP has longer hair no one will even see the earrings if they're not looking really hard.

What do you mean "tiny?" You think people aren't going to notice them? They're not "tiny" relative to the size of your ear lmfao. I guess I can walk into work and "otherwise" present myself professionally while wearing a full set of clown makeup and wig.

No one's going to toss you out of the office, but it looks extremely immature and stupid on an adult attorney, particularly at a law firm. If you want to undermine your own efforts to present yourself professionally with a stupid sartorial decision like that, by all means! Cartilage piercings are like, what you wear to the club. Even earrings (on the EAR LOBE) aren't that common among older female attorneys. Nose rings at the office are even stupider.

And like I said, girls that older male partners find "cute" or "attractive" will typically get away with this either because they are smitten or afraid of being sued. Older female partners will be more openly judgmental.

Here's a study showing that random people rated doctors with untraditional facial piercings (outside of earrings) a less competent and trustworthy. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6110655/.

So like I said, you already know the answer to this question. And no one at the office will tell you you look unprofessional.

[Anonymous User]

I'm in a market that is less conservative than NY/DC but still a major market, and an associate I work with has 8 or so piercings in one of her ears. Nobody has ever mentioned it or been bothered by it (to my knowledge). She's an excellent associate, so it'd be a really stupid reason to alienate her.

Yeah, people also don't say anything when older partners are sleeping with associates. In the vast majority of cases, if you aren't conducting yourself properly, no one is going to say anything. Sounds like a very entitled immature attitude. "Oh gee, how stupid of the law firm to 'alienate' associates because they don't present themselves professionally!" You have that backwards.

[nixy]

The way OP posed the question suggests they know it looks immature and stupid to older partners but want to ask if they can "get away" with it. You will make yourself look silly and it's not professional but no one's going to like step in and stop you.

Lol that you had to post the above anon.

If someone otherwise presents themself professionally, two tiny hoops aren't going to destroy that, and especially not a tiny stud. Besides, if the OP has longer hair no one will even see the earrings if they're not looking really hard.

What do you mean "tiny?" You think people aren't going to notice them? They're not "tiny" relative to the size of your ear lmfao. I guess I can walk into work and "otherwise" present myself professionally while wearing a full set of clown makeup and wig.

No one's going to toss you out of the office, but it looks extremely immature and stupid on an adult attorney, particularly at a law firm. If you want to undermine your own efforts to present yourself professionally with a stupid sartorial decision like that, by all means! Cartilage piercings are like, what you wear to the club. Even earrings (on the EAR LOBE) aren't that common among older female attorneys. Nose rings at the office are even stupider.

And like I said, girls that older male partners find "cute" or "attractive" will typically get away with this either because they are smitten or afraid of being sued. Older female partners will be more openly judgmental.

Here's a study showing that random people rated doctors with untraditional facial piercings (outside of earrings) a less competent and trustworthy. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6110655/.

So like I said, you already know the answer to this question. And no one at the office will tell you you look unprofessional.

Lol, did you actually read the article you cited? It doesn’t support your argument here at all [longer version: when patients actually interacted with real doctors who had tattoos or various piercings, as opposed to looking at a photograph of such a doctor, there was no difference in their ratings of those doctors compared to patient interactions with the same doctors without the body mods.] Did someone with cartilage piercings kick your dog or something? Or are you part of some religion than bans body mods? Because damn.

[Anonymous User]

Biglaw partner. It is a spectrum. In my experience, no one will bat an eye at two piercings in the ear cartilage, a tasteful nose stud on a woman, etc. But eight cartilage piercings, a septum piercing, a bar or helix piercing, gauges in the earlobes, etc. will probably draw eyebrows from some people. At the end of the day, this is a job that pays you a lot of money to exercise good judgment, and your appearance should reflect that you are a person who exercises good judgment. That doesn't mean you need to avoid anything that anyone might conceivably view as unprofessional, and the idea that you would need to avoid any earlobe piercings because some older female partners don't wear earrings is crazy. But it's a conservative profession and you do need to be conscious of sending the wrong message.

[Anonymous User]

Male earrings -- no. Take it out. Maybe just a tiny stud is fine but not anything bigger.

Women are fine, even with multiple and random location, as long as it doesn't look trashy. I can't define it but I know it when I see it.

I'm sure for a lot of people it's all not only fine but me even saying this is problematic. Whatever. There will be people who judge you for standing out by choice, and it does have the potential to hurt your early career.

[Anonymous User]

The way OP posed the question suggests they know it looks immature and stupid to older partners but want to ask if they can "get away" with it. You will make yourself look silly and it's not professional but no one's going to like step in and stop you.

Lol that you had to post the above anon.

If someone otherwise presents themself professionally, two tiny hoops aren't going to destroy that, and especially not a tiny stud. Besides, if the OP has longer hair no one will even see the earrings if they're not looking really hard.

What do you mean "tiny?" You think people aren't going to notice them? They're not "tiny" relative to the size of your ear lmfao. I guess I can walk into work and "otherwise" present myself professionally while wearing a full set of clown makeup and wig.

No one's going to toss you out of the office, but it looks extremely immature and stupid on an adult attorney, particularly at a law firm. If you want to undermine your own efforts to present yourself professionally with a stupid sartorial decision like that, by all means! Cartilage piercings are like, what you wear to the club. Even earrings (on the EAR LOBE) aren't that common among older female attorneys. Nose rings at the office are even stupider.

And like I said, girls that older male partners find "cute" or "attractive" will typically get away with this either because they are smitten or afraid of being sued. Older female partners will be more openly judgmental.

Here's a study showing that random people rated doctors with untraditional facial piercings (outside of earrings) a less competent and trustworthy. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6110655/.

So like I said, you already know the answer to this question. And no one at the office will tell you you look unprofessional.

Lol, did you actually read the article you cited? It doesn’t support your argument here at all [longer version: when patients actually interacted with real doctors who had tattoos or various piercings, as opposed to looking at a photograph of such a doctor, there was no difference in their ratings of those doctors compared to patient interactions with the same doctors without the body mods.] Did someone with cartilage piercings kick your dog or something? Or are you part of some religion than bans body mods? Because damn.

Yeah, that's the delusional cope part of the article where they compare ratings of the same person with or without piercings, which I'm not surprised you latched onto. It claims that patient perceptions of a doctor they already knew were "mostly" unaffected. Which is bullshit, because it's more likely people didn't want to assign lower ratings to a doctor they had met and liked to be "mean."

The properly conducted anonymous surveys on appearance (because that's what happens -- people judge you anonymously or keep their thoughts to themselves) show that people prefer formal appearance, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 16.1187865, did not like piercings, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1490068/, and rather that doctor's wear a like coat, https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/5/e021239, all of which resulted in higher ratings. The same applies for lawyers, that's why every major law firm has photos of their attorneys looking clean cut and smiling, and not like they run a tattoo parlor.

It has nothing to do with what I "like," you sound dopey. Seems more like your feelings are hurt and you're crying about it because the attention-seeking behavior is being called out. I could give a shit what people want to put in their earlobes/noses/eyebrows. But if you're walking around in a law firm trying to attract attention with various piercings you look like a moron and it's not going to help you.

[Anonymous User]

Biglaw partner. It is a spectrum. In my experience, no one will bat an eye at two piercings in the ear cartilage, a tasteful nose stud on a woman, etc. But eight cartilage piercings, a septum piercing, a bar or helix piercing, gauges in the earlobes, etc. will probably draw eyebrows from some people. At the end of the day, this is a job that pays you a lot of money to exercise good judgment, and your appearance should reflect that you are a person who exercises good judgment. That doesn't mean you need to avoid anything that anyone might conceivably view as unprofessional, and the idea that you would need to avoid any earlobe piercings because some older female partners don't wear earrings is crazy. But it's a conservative profession and you do need to be conscious of sending the wrong message.

"Big law partner here to clear things up"

"Show good judgment"

"You don't have to worry about looking unprofessional"

2+2=5?

[Rule23andMe]

Biglaw partner. It is a spectrum. In my experience, no one will bat an eye at two piercings in the ear cartilage, a tasteful nose stud on a woman, etc. But eight cartilage piercings, a septum piercing, a bar or helix piercing, gauges in the earlobes, etc. will probably draw eyebrows from some people. At the end of the day, this is a job that pays you a lot of money to exercise good judgment, and your appearance should reflect that you are a person who exercises good judgment. That doesn't mean you need to avoid anything that anyone might conceivably view as unprofessional, and the idea that you would need to avoid any earlobe piercings because some older female partners don't wear earrings is crazy. But it's a conservative profession and you do need to be conscious of sending the wrong message.

"Big law partner here to clear things up"

"Show good judgment"

"You don't have to worry about looking unprofessional"

2+2=5?

Come on now, they never said you don't have to worry and they gave some examples of what might qualify anyway. They're just saying it's a not a big deal to be somewhere on the spectrum (as would OP) but probably wise to avoid being way on one end of it such that you stand out for it (certainly not OP). Not that poster but don't understand the ire - an extra data point like theirs seems helpful here

*reading again they explicitly say "you do need to be conscious" so just a braindead comment from anon here

[nixy]

Yeah, that's the delusional cope part of the article where they compare ratings of the same person with or without piercings, which I'm not surprised you latched onto. It claims that patient perceptions of a doctor they already knew were "mostly" unaffected. Which is bullshit, because it's more likely people didn't want to assign lower ratings to a doctor they had met and liked to be "mean."

The properly conducted anonymous surveys on appearance (because that's what happens -- people judge you anonymously or keep their thoughts to themselves) show that people prefer formal appearance, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 16.1187865, did not like piercings, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1490068/, and rather that doctor's wear a like coat, https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/5/e021239, all of which resulted in higher ratings. The same applies for lawyers, that's why every major law firm has photos of their attorneys looking clean cut and smiling, and not like they run a tattoo parlor.

It has nothing to do with what I "like," you sound dopey. Seems more like your feelings are hurt and you're crying about it because the attention-seeking behavior is being called out. I could give a shit what people want to put in their earlobes/noses/eyebrows. But if you're walking around in a law firm trying to attract attention with various piercings you look like a moron and it's not going to help you.

If you’d like to make things up about the study in that article, go off, I guess. The point was that the presence of body mods didn’t actually affect patients’ perceptions of actual individual doctors who treated them, as opposed to the rating of photos; you can editorialize all you like about what you think that actually means but twisting it to fit your pre-existing lens isn’t convincing.

Also, to be clear, the responses suggesting that 1) it depends on the nature of the piercings, 2) women have more options than men, and 3) some people might have issues because law is a conservative profession are completely fine. Those kinds of answers are completely different from telling someone they look silly, immature, unprofessional, that piercings are equivalent to wearing full clown suit and makeup, or that having multiple piercings in your ear is attention-seeking behavior. So that’s why it does seem like you personally give a shit.

[Anonymous User]

There is no correct or right answer here, just general ones. Ultimately, as this thread shows, it comes down to the person. Some people will consciously judge you, some people will unconsciously judge you, some people will not care.

I feel pretty comfortable saying certain things for the most part are worth avoiding entirely: those would be face or hand tattoos and face piercings for everything except nose studs and no septum piercings. Everything else, it is up to you. But this is just life. Your hair color, the clothes you wear, etc... people make snap judgments on.

My personal take is just take it out at work, but if it is important to you that you keep them in I really don't think it is a big deal especially if everything else is toned down. I think for the most part boomer partners have learned that times are changing, but you're delusional if you think there aren't judgmental 50 and 60 year olds that don't at least subconsciously take these things into account.

[Belli]

There is no correct or right answer here, just general ones. Ultimately, as this thread shows, it comes down to the person. Some people will consciously judge you, some people will unconsciously judge you, some people will not care.

I feel pretty comfortable saying certain things for the most part are worth avoiding entirely: those would be face or hand tattoos and face piercings for everything except nose studs and no septum piercings. Everything else, it is up to you. But this is just life. Your hair color, the clothes you wear, etc... people make snap judgments on.

My personal take is just take it out at work, but if it is important to you that you keep them in I really don't think it is a big deal especially if everything else is toned down. I think for the most part boomer partners have learned that times are changing, but you're delusional if you think there aren't judgmental 50 and 60 year olds that don't at least subconsciously take these things into account.

you're delusional if you think there aren't judgmental 50 and 60 year olds that don't at least subconsciously take these things into account.
Excellent. And that's the demographic with all the money.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, that's the delusional cope part of the article where they compare ratings of the same person with or without piercings, which I'm not surprised you latched onto. It claims that patient perceptions of a doctor they already knew were "mostly" unaffected. Which is bullshit, because it's more likely people didn't want to assign lower ratings to a doctor they had met and liked to be "mean."

The properly conducted anonymous surveys on appearance (because that's what happens -- people judge you anonymously or keep their thoughts to themselves) show that people prefer formal appearance, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 16.1187865, did not like piercings, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1490068/, and rather that doctor's wear a like coat, https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/5/e021239, all of which resulted in higher ratings. The same applies for lawyers, that's why every major law firm has photos of their attorneys looking clean cut and smiling, and not like they run a tattoo parlor.

It has nothing to do with what I "like," you sound dopey. Seems more like your feelings are hurt and you're crying about it because the attention-seeking behavior is being called out. I could give a shit what people want to put in their earlobes/noses/eyebrows. But if you're walking around in a law firm trying to attract attention with various piercings you look like a moron and it's not going to help you.

If you’d like to make things up about the study in that article, go off, I guess. The point was that the presence of body mods didn’t actually affect patients’ perceptions of actual individual doctors who treated them, as opposed to the rating of photos; you can editorialize all you like about what you think that actually means but twisting it to fit your pre-existing lens isn’t convincing.

Also, to be clear, the responses suggesting that 1) it depends on the nature of the piercings, 2) women have more options than men, and 3) some people might have issues because law is a conservative profession are completely fine. Those kinds of answers are completely different from telling someone they look silly, immature, unprofessional, that piercings are equivalent to wearing full clown suit and makeup, or that having multiple piercings in your ear is attention-seeking behavior. So that’s why it does seem like you personally give a shit.

According to one study of emergency room patients, where they were treated by them once, and then asked to rate them again. In other words, their first impression was of them WITHOUT the piercings/tattoos. And apparently the sample size was so small that several of the participating doctors didn't even see enough patients to draw any data from. Plus, the person who commissioned the study was apparently inspired the the "stringent" rules about body piercings at hospitals. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/patients- ... d=56329779. One of the doctors apparently dropped out of the study because they considered it too embarrassing to display their tatoos.

Contrast with three studies including from 2018 finding the exact opposite result with better controls. One showed the piercing as the first impression (which will be the realistic scenario, rather than hiding it), one was a general questionnaire for the public, and the third sampled 4k patients and asked them to rate photos of physicians. All three confirmed that patients negatively viewed non-traditional piercings and tattoos.

1) https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/5/e021239
2) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 16.1187865
3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1490068/

So it has nothing to do with whether I or you "like" piercings; the general public view piercings as "unprofessional" and law is just as conservative a practice as medicine. You are spouting objectively untrue, silly and wrong opinions when you say "piercings are no big deal." You are drawing negative attention to yourself whether you want to admit it or not.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, that's the delusional cope part of the article where they compare ratings of the same person with or without piercings, which I'm not surprised you latched onto. It claims that patient perceptions of a doctor they already knew were "mostly" unaffected. Which is bullshit, because it's more likely people didn't want to assign lower ratings to a doctor they had met and liked to be "mean."

The properly conducted anonymous surveys on appearance (because that's what happens -- people judge you anonymously or keep their thoughts to themselves) show that people prefer formal appearance, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 16.1187865, did not like piercings, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1490068/, and rather that doctor's wear a like coat, https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/5/e021239, all of which resulted in higher ratings. The same applies for lawyers, that's why every major law firm has photos of their attorneys looking clean cut and smiling, and not like they run a tattoo parlor.

It has nothing to do with what I "like," you sound dopey. Seems more like your feelings are hurt and you're crying about it because the attention-seeking behavior is being called out. I could give a shit what people want to put in their earlobes/noses/eyebrows. But if you're walking around in a law firm trying to attract attention with various piercings you look like a moron and it's not going to help you.

If you’d like to make things up about the study in that article, go off, I guess. The point was that the presence of body mods didn’t actually affect patients’ perceptions of actual individual doctors who treated them, as opposed to the rating of photos; you can editorialize all you like about what you think that actually means but twisting it to fit your pre-existing lens isn’t convincing.

Also, to be clear, the responses suggesting that 1) it depends on the nature of the piercings, 2) women have more options than men, and 3) some people might have issues because law is a conservative profession are completely fine. Those kinds of answers are completely different from telling someone they look silly, immature, unprofessional, that piercings are equivalent to wearing full clown suit and makeup, or that having multiple piercings in your ear is attention-seeking behavior. So that’s why it does seem like you personally give a shit.

According to one study of emergency room patients, where they were treated by them once, and then asked to rate them again. In other words, their first impression was of them WITHOUT the piercings/tattoos. And apparently the sample size was so small that several of the participating doctors didn't even see enough patients to draw any data from. Plus, the person who commissioned the study was apparently inspired the the "stringent" rules about body piercings at hospitals. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/patients- ... d=56329779. One of the doctors apparently dropped out of the study because they considered it too embarrassing to display their tatoos.

Contrast with three studies including from 2018 finding the exact opposite result with better controls. One showed the piercing as the first impression (which will be the realistic scenario, rather than hiding it), one was a general questionnaire for the public, and the third sampled 4k patients and asked them to rate photos of physicians. All three confirmed that patients negatively viewed non-traditional piercings and tattoos.

1) https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/5/e021239
2) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 16.1187865
3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1490068/

So it has nothing to do with whether I or you "like" piercings; the general public view piercings as "unprofessional" and law is just as conservative a practice as medicine. You are spouting objectively untrue, silly and wrong opinions when you say "piercings are no big deal." You are drawing negative attention to yourself whether you want to admit it or not.

You did notice that the first article you link to evaluates clothing, not piercings, right? And that the others found specifically that patients had an issue with facial piercings, but did not actually test anything to do with cartilage piercings? (This is leaving aside the fact that medicine and law are actually very different professions with different expectations for practitioners.)

But in any case, the point I was making enough that you are apparently too much of a jerk to address is that you can answer the original question - “yes, there will be people in law firms who will find cartilage piercings off-putting” - without personally insulting anyone.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, that's the delusional cope part of the article where they compare ratings of the same person with or without piercings, which I'm not surprised you latched onto. It claims that patient perceptions of a doctor they already knew were "mostly" unaffected. Which is bullshit, because it's more likely people didn't want to assign lower ratings to a doctor they had met and liked to be "mean."

The properly conducted anonymous surveys on appearance (because that's what happens -- people judge you anonymously or keep their thoughts to themselves) show that people prefer formal appearance, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 16.1187865, did not like piercings, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1490068/, and rather that doctor's wear a like coat, https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/5/e021239, all of which resulted in higher ratings. The same applies for lawyers, that's why every major law firm has photos of their attorneys looking clean cut and smiling, and not like they run a tattoo parlor.

It has nothing to do with what I "like," you sound dopey. Seems more like your feelings are hurt and you're crying about it because the attention-seeking behavior is being called out. I could give a shit what people want to put in their earlobes/noses/eyebrows. But if you're walking around in a law firm trying to attract attention with various piercings you look like a moron and it's not going to help you.

If you’d like to make things up about the study in that article, go off, I guess. The point was that the presence of body mods didn’t actually affect patients’ perceptions of actual individual doctors who treated them, as opposed to the rating of photos; you can editorialize all you like about what you think that actually means but twisting it to fit your pre-existing lens isn’t convincing.

Also, to be clear, the responses suggesting that 1) it depends on the nature of the piercings, 2) women have more options than men, and 3) some people might have issues because law is a conservative profession are completely fine. Those kinds of answers are completely different from telling someone they look silly, immature, unprofessional, that piercings are equivalent to wearing full clown suit and makeup, or that having multiple piercings in your ear is attention-seeking behavior. So that’s why it does seem like you personally give a shit.

According to one study of emergency room patients, where they were treated by them once, and then asked to rate them again. In other words, their first impression was of them WITHOUT the piercings/tattoos. And apparently the sample size was so small that several of the participating doctors didn't even see enough patients to draw any data from. Plus, the person who commissioned the study was apparently inspired the the "stringent" rules about body piercings at hospitals. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/patients- ... d=56329779. One of the doctors apparently dropped out of the study because they considered it too embarrassing to display their tatoos.

Contrast with three studies including from 2018 finding the exact opposite result with better controls. One showed the piercing as the first impression (which will be the realistic scenario, rather than hiding it), one was a general questionnaire for the public, and the third sampled 4k patients and asked them to rate photos of physicians. All three confirmed that patients negatively viewed non-traditional piercings and tattoos.

1) https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/5/e021239
2) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 16.1187865
3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1490068/

So it has nothing to do with whether I or you "like" piercings; the general public view piercings as "unprofessional" and law is just as conservative a practice as medicine. You are spouting objectively untrue, silly and wrong opinions when you say "piercings are no big deal." You are drawing negative attention to yourself whether you want to admit it or not.

You did notice that the first article you link to evaluates clothing, not piercings, right? And that the others found specifically that patients had an issue with facial piercings, but did not actually test anything to do with cartilage piercings? (This is leaving aside the fact that medicine and law are actually very different professions with different expectations for practitioners.)

But in any case, the point I was making enough that you are apparently too much of a jerk to address is that you can answer the original question - “yes, there will be people in law firms who will find cartilage piercings off-putting” - without personally insulting anyone.

"Many patrons and physicians feel that some types of nontraditional piercings are inappropriate attire for physicians, and some piercings negatively affect perceived competency and trustworthiness. Health care providers should understand that attire may affect a patient's opinion about their abilities and possibly erode confidence in them as a clinician."

"Earrings were considered acceptable for female doctors to wear (60.7%), but only 19.3% of the participants felt that this was acceptable for male doctors. A low percentage of participants found piercings and tattoos in both female and male doctors acceptable (see Tables 1 and 2)."

Cartilage piercings are not traditional.

[The Lsat Airbender]

we might as well just make all the posts anonymous at this point, go full xoxo