Puttin’ on Those White Shoes

Whenever I hear someone refer to a “white-shoe law firm,” I get this mental picture of a group of lawyers in their dark-blue pin-stripe Armani suits, Countess Mara power ties, starched Turnbull & Asser dress shirts--and white tennis shoes. In fact, the white shoes in question are not tennis shoes at all. The phrase refers to important old law firms, mostly in New York or Boston, whose members do not, as a rule, wear white shoes of any sort while actually practicing law, although they are fully shod in darker hues. 

As the late word maven William Safire explained it, the phrase derives from "white bucks," a type of laced suede or buckskin shoes with dark red soles that have been popular for more than half a century among moneyed New Englanders, especially fraternity men at Ivy League colleges. “White-shoe” is defined by Wordnet as "denoting a company or law firm owned and run by members of the WASP elite."

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou, whose modest legal affairs are tended by an equally modest lawyer in scuffed brown loafers, filed this brief as amicus curiae.

          SONG OF A WHITE-SHOE LAWYER

I’m puttin’ on my white shoes,

           Snappin’ shut my briefcase,

           Thinkin’ of my fee.

           I’m polishin’ those white shoes,

           Sittin’ here admirin’

           My Ivy League degree.           

           

           I'm off to court today

           And there is no delay 

           To plead my client’s case 

           And I must

           Be sure the verdict’s just-- 

           ‘Cause there’s no second place!

          

           I’m dressed for power, 

           In my Armani outfit

           And my fancy white shoes, 

           Billin’ every hour!