BY ZAK SZYMANSKI
It’s a hot summer evening and Bloomington attorney Andy Mallor is driving 170 miles to a hearing scheduled for the following day.
But not to worry, he jokingly affirms from his cell phone, “I look good.”
Consistently voted one of Indiana’s “Top 50 Super Lawyers” by Law&Politics magazine, Mallor is also Bloomington’s most high-profile haberdasher, selling custom-made suits and other fine clothing from his downtown store, Andrew Davis Menswear.
It’s a dual career that fits so well, not even road trips or the end of the workday are excuses to dress down. “I do wear sweats at home,” Mallor offers. “Sometimes.”
The New Jersey native moved to Bloomington 41 years ago as an IU freshman, stayed for law
school, and never left. With a passion for estate planning and litigation, he helped establish the former firm Mallor, Clendening, Grodner & Bohrer. [Mallor helped begin his current law firm, Mallor Grodner LLP, in 2010.]
But even in the early days, according to former law partner Michael Oren Fitzgerald, Mallor spoke of opening a menswear shop.
“Each time we walked into a clothing store,” says Fitzgerald, who worked with Mallor in the 1970s, “Andy could identify everything that was done well and everything that needed to be improved.”
Still, it wasn’t until Mallor established his legal career and family—wife Jane, a Kelley School of Business professor, and their two daughters—that he began branching out. His first Andrew Davis Menswear store opened in Ft. Wayne; the Bloomington shop, at 101 W. Kirkwood, followed in the fall of 2007.
Toward the back of the sleek wood-paneled Bloomington store is Mallor’s pride and joy: a collection of wool and cashmere fabric that provides “an amazing experience…where customers can touch and feel their suits” before they’re even cut. Onsite tailoring guarantees a perfect fit, he says, and the made-to-measure process allows for “some really neat things—like flashy linings, initials, and different pocket slants.”
Though his two professions are separate, the inevitable overlap has led to some interesting situations, such as the client he representedin a divorce who complained that her husband shopped too much—guess where.
Each occupation requires an emphasis on helping people, says Mallor. At the law firm, this can mean supporting small businesses or making things better for families “going through the pains of dissolution.”
At Andrew Davis, it can mean curing men of their fear of color. Says Mallor, “It’s really hard to get guys to start looking at different colors and patterns, but once they do, they realize they stand out—and that women love it.”
