Of Shoes and Strategy

They were “death on a staircase” shoes, and they stopped me dead in my tracks.

Sleek leopard print brocade, with pointy toes, squared off vamps, delicate sling backs, and spike heels that added a good three and a half inches to my height. These were definitely trophy shoes.

I tried them on, but the questions I purported to be seriously asking myself as I strode back and forth in the shoe department glancing at the mirror from various angles—could I really wear them into a courtroom; what suit and accessories would they possibly go with; if I didn’t think I’d wear them to work where on earth would I ever wear them—were as ritualized and formulaic as Kabuki theater.

Of course I was going to buy them, it was a foregone conclusion. They were gorgeous, and sexy, and the fact I had no place in particular to wear them yet hadn’t been a deterrent to any of their predecessors sitting in my closet and getting regular workouts. My theory that the occasion would follow the shoes was still working just fine, thank you very much. The shoes came home with me.

Spike heels get a bum rap from a lot of quarters. They’ve been likened to Chinese foot-binding. A male conspiracy to keep us helpless and off balance. Something that channels the pain of the wearer into the suffering and domination of someone else. A recent article in National Geographic Magazine, “Every Shoe Tells a Story,” quoted British photographer David Bailey as having a fondness for high heels because “[i]t means girls can’t run away from me.”

If that’s what Mr. Bailey really said, I don’t think he was grasping the whole picture.

Doesn’t anybody remember what Jennifer Jason Leigh’s evil character did to Bridget Fonda’s boyfriend with a stiletto heel in the 1992 movie “Single White Female”? Or how Rachel McAdams slowed down terrorist bad-guy Cillian Murphy toward the end of director Wes Craven’s 2005 thriller “Red Eye”? I had to laugh when I watched the scene where she sinks her sling-back stiletto into Murphy’s thigh, realizing, I have the same shoes!! And we’ve all seen what Jack Bauer is capable of doing with his bare hands week after week in “24.” Just imagine what he could do armed with a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Probably break into Fort Knox blindfolded and walking backwards.

I like to break down my own fondness for “limousine shoes” as an exercise in courtroom strategy, since nearly every pair that follows me home in a shopping bag finds it way into court with me at some point.

First, there’s the height advantage, always a good thing in an authority figure. At five foot ten in heels, I’m easy to spot in a crowd. Then, of course, there’s that delightfully authoritative snap of spike heels on a marble floor, an auditory declaration that indeed, trouble is just around the corner and closing fast. A cop I work with almost every day has said he can tell that I’m approaching a particular courtroom from behind closed doors just by the rapping sound of my footsteps in the corridor beyond. I like it that way!

And last—aside from the whole “armed and dangerous” aspect of wearing something that could literally put somebody’s eye out—is what I call the “mother-in-law” advantage. Hard to really pinpoint this one, except to feel that on some level, if a defendant’s mother, or sister, or aunt suddenly stops our group problem-solving discussion to tell me that I’ve got great shoes, I've gained, well...something.

Not sure exactly what, but...still something that none of my male colleagues in wing-tips or oxfords will ever experience a glimpse of.

Which brings me to one of my favorite illustrations of just why I keep wearing these death-defying shoes to court, and taking the elevator instead of risking my life on the stairs. A few months ago, criminal traffic court—the stuff that can get you jail time—was about to start. The defendants’ names are usually called in alphabetical order, or in whatever order a judge feels like mixing up the alphabet just to keep things interesting that day.

A middle-aged woman came up to me and asked if I could do her a favor by getting her case called early in the bunch. Her husband had cancer, and was home alone, and she needed to get back to help him with his medications. Was there anything I could do? She was nervous and clearly out of her element in this courtroom, not one of our more regular customers who take their repeat appearances in stride, the “not guilty” plea as reflexive as breathing. I remember I was wearing a pair of show-stopping plaid stilettos that day, with tiny black patent bows, and I absolutely towered over her in them. She barely came past my chin.

I assured her that I would do what I could, and passed word to the judge that this woman could really use a favor. We got her in and out in a hurry, and she was gracious and effusive in her thanks to all for letting her be on her way in such short order under such difficult circumstances. As she was leaving, she passed me where I was seated at the prosecution table and smiled on her way out. They she caught herself in mid-stride, turned, and in front of a room full of defendants, attorneys, courtroom staff and the judge, breached courtroom decorum, order and dignified routine, stopped and announced “oh, and I love your shoes!!”

The prosecution rests.