City's lawyer takes a shine to shoes

Eight months into her appointed tenure as city solicitor, Shelley Smith's docket is jammed with high-profile cases involving the Boy Scouts, guns and abused children.

But first, what's up with those shoes?

Fifty pairs of size 11's in her office cupboard, with 150 more pairs at home. Enough designer heels, flats, sandals, sneakers and boots to fill Carrie Bradshaw's dream closet in Sex and the City.

Like the ace attorney she is, Smith has a precise explanation for the trove.

"If one were to have the shoes one actually needed as basics, one would indeed have black, brown and navy shoes of varying heel heights, both summer and winter," says Smith, in black Biala slingback peep-toe pumps.

"Then there's dressy versus casual, or day versus night, or weekday versus weekend."

We get it, counselor. It's complicated being in your shoes.

Smith, 43, a Villanova Law School graduate with a penchant for quoting Fred Flintstone, commands a $60 million-a-year department that includes 152 lawyers and 173 support staff.

The reach of her office, which represents the mayor, City Council and all city departments in civil matters, cannot be overstated, says David L. Cohen, chief of staff under Mayor Ed Rendell.

"There's not an important, substantive issue in city government that doesn't pass by or run through the City Solicitor's Office."

No objection there. At any one time, the law department has 30,000 open cases.

The latest, filed Monday following a scathing grand jury report on the starvation death of teen Danieal Kelly, claims the city's Department of Human Services is failing to protect some 28,000 at-risk children.

Smith's other headline cases represent the Holy Trinity of hot-button issues. Or, as she puts it, "God, guns and gambling."

Radioactive cases are nothing new for Smith. She put in 13 years under seven city solicitors before leaving for private practice in 2005. Certain cases can advance what she calls the city's "parameters of principle."

The Boy Scouts action, for one, underscores the city's commitment to equality regardless of sexual orientation, she says.

Because the local council has refused to change its policy barring gays (and atheists), City Council voted to evict it from its free, city-owned headquarters as of last May 31 unless it paid $200,000 annual rent.

The Scout council filed a complaint in federal court, alleging the city had violated its First Amendment rights. Both sides have asked for a delay in the eviction case until the federal suit is resolved.

"To me, the Boy Scouts are not sacred," Smith says. The eviction "is not about their value to the community. It's about discriminatory behavior by people who get a benefit from the city."

Smith is not afraid to take aim at the National Rifle Association, either.

When the city enacted five gun-control measures in April, the NRA sued in Common Pleas Court. The judge ruled that Philadelphia could not enforce two of the five. Both sides have appealed.

"We have a disturbing level of gun violence in this city," Smith says. "While people have the right to own guns under certain circumstances, that right is not unlimited."

In a case involving casinos, developers took the city to court when their plans for two gambling palaces on the Delaware River stalled. Issues over permits are in litigation.

To Smith, the principle is "rational development and planning" that best serves the community's economic and civic interests. (Translation: You build it; we'll tell you where.)

The cases have triggered strong reactions among citizens on all sides. Smith stays chill under fire.

"I don't get into all the drama and hyperbole of these cases," she says. "They're about legal issues . . . not about the parties involved."

Mark Aronchick, Mayor Bill Green's solicitor in the early 1980s, grades Smith's performance "an A-plus, so far."

She has sidestepped three "land mines" that he says can trip up newbies: getting dragged into political battles with a new mayor, recruiting poorly, and "stumbling around" on labor contracts.

On Aug. 14, the city wrapped up one-year-contract negotiations with the third of four municipal unions, and there wasn't even blood on the floor.

Smith's collaborative style and dry humor are credited with reinvigorating a staff that was stir-fried by the Street administration's scandal-plagued final year.

Between the City Hall bug probe and "all the negative scrutiny of the administration, the lawyers in this office were feeling really underappreciated," she says. "It created an atmosphere of exhaustion."

Last year's attrition rate was 14 percent - highest in a decade, she says. And with a starting salary of $49,000, it's tough to attract the best and the brightest.

Smith sees a large part of her mission as being a cheerleader - ironic for someone who was told she didn't have what it took to make the Girls High squad.

"I feel passionate about what I do," she says. "This is an easy cheerleading assignment, even for someone like me, who wasn't peppy enough to put on a short skirt, wave pom-poms in the air, and do splits."

In a cheer-worthy development, Smith has four hires in fiscal 2009 - the department's first since June 2007. "I have a good sense of what's necessary," she says, "and how to argue for it."

Smith gave no argument to Nutter when he pitched returning to her municipal alma mater. Money wasn't a factor. Her $175,000 salary is on par with what she earned in her previous job, at Peco Energy.

"This is work you cannot do anywhere else," she says. "You won't get the kind of opportunity, responsibility and autonomy to practice law that you have in this office. I love it. It's the most fun you can have as a lawyer."

Smith's directness is both a strength and weakness. With those she considers underprepared, her wit can be cutting.

"I don't have a lot of tolerance for nonsense or stupidity," she admits. "When I have to confront it, I'm impatient about it. I know where all the bodies are buried, and I know how you bury them."

Shannon Farmer, 36, a partner at Ballard Spahr, Smith's former firm, says Smith "gets frustrated, like we all do, when people don't perform well. She's very exacting."

And exact. A trivia savant, Smith is as well-known for her encyclopedic recall of ephemera as she is for her lawyering skills.

"It's frightening and intimidating," says ex-city managing director Loree Jones, 39, a fellow board member at Smith's West Philadelphia condo.

"Shelley will know the kind of grape used for an obscure wine or the capital of some country most people have never heard of."

Pedro Ramos, city solicitor in 2004-05, puts it another way: "I can't remember if I ever played Trivial Pursuit with Shelley, or whether it's just a nightmare."

Labeling herself "a magnum of minutiae," Smith has no explanation for this particular talent. For example, she knows every word of dialogue from her all-time favorite movie, The Philadelphia Story.

Then again, she's seen it 75 times. Surprisingly, she says she identifies with Katharine Hepburn's character, the haughty, tightly wound Tracy Lord.

"Cary Grant tells her, 'You'll never be a first-class woman until you learn to have some regard for human frailty.' I'm not anywhere near as harsh as she is, but I identify with her struggle to learn how to be herself and let herself go."

On the job, Smith has learned to let herself go and still be diplomatic.

"Shelley gets it done without a lot of fireworks," says Wolf Block's Andrew Chirls, 52, former chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association. "She understands what it is to be in the trenches."

Now, about those shoes . . .

Smith didn't start out with a shoe boutique in her office, she insists. The assemblage has accumulated over time. Wearing flats to work, she brings in footwear to match that day's outfit, "and they just stay here."

She swears she's no Imelda Marcos.

"I wouldn't call it a fetish. It's more along the lines of an obsession. It's very challenging to find shoes that fit. I have to hunt. The hunt became an obsession. Now I'm on a bit of a mission. . . . My mother would say I'm crazy."

Crazy like a fox. In $500 Jimmy Choo pumps.