Sentenced to Basic Black, Judges Find Chatsworth Firm <i> de Rigueur</i> : Courts: Academic Choir Apparel outfits jurists’ robes with everything from velvet trim to secret gun pockets.

The most famous judge in America, Lance A. Ito, got his there.

So did the judge who used to be the most famous guy on the bench, Joseph Wapner of “People’s Court” fame.

Judge John Ouderkirk, who presided over the Reginald O. Denny beating trial, hangs on to his, a gift from when he first took the bench. Judge Stanley Weisberg, in charge of the Menendez brothers murder trial, wears his faithfully.

To many, such as Judge Judith Chirlin, who presided over the “Boxing Helena” case involving actress Kim Basinger, the verdict is in on the robes produced by Academic Choir Apparel: they’re black and they’re beautiful.

The Chatsworth-based, family-owned business is the leading couturier to California’s newest class of celebrities, the judicial glitterati. Polyester or silk, monogrammed or plain, elbow patches or a secret pocket for a gun--if a judge wants it, Michael and Evelyn Cronan’s plant delivers.

They dominate a side of the judge business that’s highly visible and yet a virtual afterthought--the business of robes, the uniform that every California judge must, by law, wear. It’s a business rich in lore and in history, and a company notable for innovation--such as it is, the subject being robes.

All in all, conceded Michael Cronan, president of Academic Choir, there’s only one thing lacking: “The garment industry is about fashion. We’re not fashion.”

Rather, it’s about law and economics.

Current state law says that a judge must wear a robe in open court and that it must be black, reach to the knees and have long sleeves. It also says judges must buy the robes at their own expense.

Because judges purchase their own robes, they tend to become attached to them. And perhaps because judges are given to frugality, they tend to keep their robes a long time.

Chirlin has had hers for nine years, since she took the bench. Robert Letteau, who is the supervising judge of the Van Nuys Superior Court, is going on 13 years. “It’s starting to shred,” Letteau said. “I’m starting to feel insecure as I take the bench.”

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An Academic Choir robe costs $127 to $413, depending on the fabric and style. Silk costs more; polyester less. The most popular model, a lightweight polyester the company calls Coupe de Ville, runs $147 for Style 366, which features fully lined, coat-like sleeves.

The tapered sleeves, said Evelyn Cronan, are an Academic Choir innovation, thought up by her father, Harry Stanley, who founded the company in 1946. Judges complained that the traditional but pouffy bell sleeves were always getting in the way, she said, so her dad slimmed down the sleeves and found customers receptive.

In the old days, she said, Stanley rode the circuit, traveling the state with his wares. He would show up in the back of a courtroom, and that was that--the judge would call a halt to the proceedings and summon all the other judges. “That’s all he’d have to do,” Evelyn Cronan said.

Business grew by word of mouth, she said, and now the company sells 700 or 800 judicial robes a year, mostly in California. That accounts for about 10% of the firm’s revenues; the bulk of business is robes for graduation and for church and school choirs.

The company’s principal California rival, Ireland Needlecraft of Glendale, just changed hands and is temporarily out of production. New owner Bob Stotts said he hopes to be back in business by next month.

Nowadays, judges order robes by mail. Academic Choir graciously provides a five-foot-long tape-measure and gladly accommodates those judges who find that the sedentary nature of the law has left them portly.

“We’ve had some real big ones,” Michael Cronan said. “We just make them bigger across the front, sew in some extra panels, some extra material in back.”

For the best fit, the company inquires whether a judge’s shoulders are straight, have an average slope or are “very sloped.”

Female judges can opt for Style 366W. The brochure boasts that it allows a “woman to look like a woman while retaining the dignity of the office,” with piping along the neckline and sleeves.

“There really is a difference between girl robes and boy robes,” Chirlin said. “The difference is the pockets. Girls have pockets; boy robes have slits so guys can reach in their (pants) pockets.”

At no cost, Academic Choir will monogram the inside of the robe, above the tag, usually with a judge’s initials. Extra are elbow patches ($6), an eyeglass pocket (also $6), an added pocket ($5) or, for the gloriously vain, a velvet front ($85).

The Cronans also welcome special orders. A judge in “one of the Dakotas, North or South, I don’t remember,” ordered a robe made from denim, Michael Cronan said. Another judge “from back East somewhere” wanted one in green and embroidered with a shamrock.

One Los Angeles judge used to order pink robes. And a judge from Riverside County really did order a pocket for a concealed gun. “It was a Beretta,” Michael Cronan said.

The company fashioned a special pocket inside the robe and lined it with an especially smooth fabric so that the judge could whip the gun out with ease, Cronan said. “That’s what he asked for and that’s what we gave him,” he said. “It was a fairly low-cost option. It was under $20.”

That order, he said, led him to think that a robe lined with bulletproof Kevlar could be a big seller. “But it would take a lot of research to get it going,” he said.

Thrust into the line of fire, new judges find that wearing a robe takes some getting used to. Cecil Mills, the supervising judge of Los Angeles County’s criminal courts, recalled one of his first days on the bench 19 years ago, with a robe that dangled well down toward his ankles.

“I went to get up from the bench and the thing was laying there under my chair,” Mills said. “As I stood up, it pulled me right down on the floor. It’s kind of embarrassing to have to climb up from under the bench, to announce that you’ve tripped over your dress.”

Experienced judges highly recommend snaps down the front instead of zippers. “Zippers are bad,” Chirlin said. “For a woman, you can get your blouse caught. Guys get their ties caught.”

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The truly savvy take it even a step further. Letteau said his wife sewed Velcro straps onto the front of his robe: “So now, as I take off my Superman robe I’m in and out in a hurry.”

Actually, said Irwin Nebron, who retired a few weeks ago from the Los Angeles Superior Court after nearly 29 years on the bench, one San Diego judge many years back really did think his robe turned him into Batman.

Flapping his arms and billowing about in the robe, the judge would walk down the courthouse halls, crying out, “I’m Batman! I’m Batman!” Nebron added: “He was removed from office.”

Then, he said, there’s the one about the judge in Sacramento who suffered a heart attack on a baking-hot summer day in the Central Valley. The paramedics found he had nothing on underneath. “This is all part of robe lore,” Nebron said.

As is the “best April Fool’s joke you can play on a judge, to sew the sleeves shut,” according to San Diego Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell. “You’re rushing out into court and you’re trying to get your arms through and you can’t. That happened to me once.”

McConnell still has that same robe--which is no surprise to the Cronans. “It’s a work uniform,” Evelyn Cronan said. “But it gets to be like an old bathrobe. It’s comfortable. They don’t want to part with it. It gets to be personal. Even if it may not be high fashion.”

Which, more or less, was the message from Ito.

He allowed that his robe has his initials inside it, but passed along the word through another judge that he thought “he’d hold off on any further comment until Mr. Blackwell,” the self-appointed fashion snob, “called to inquire about his robe.”