I was sitting in my office. It was a hot July day. My office is in one of the oldest buildings Downtown and, unfortunately, the HVAC needs a major upgrade which the landlord has been unwilling to pay for. Sweat tricked down my sides under my shirt. I loosened my tie still more. I dreaded putting on my suit coat for the five block walk to the state courthouse.
Looking out my office window, I could see the Federal courthouse across the street. I could see one set of large windows still boarded up. The surrounding limestone façade was still smoke-blackened. A month ago, a young female suicide bomber had managed to get past building security. It was later determined that she had strapped a bomb to the inside of her thigh. She detonated the bomb during a preliminary hearing in the Magistrate's courtroom. Three of my professional colleagues had died, along with the bomber. Several other people had been seriously injured, including the United States Magistrate Judge.
My computer screen alerted me to a received e-mail flagged as urgent. I enlarged my Outlook window. The urgent e-mail was from a colleague and good friend Mike, titled "What The Hell!" with an attached file. The text of the message read only "This is sick. We have to take this to the Circuit!" I opened the attached file. It contained what appeared to be an order from the U.S. District Court, General Order 13-12, "Enhanced Courthouse Security." Well, no surprise so far. I knew that there would be some reaction to the bombing. The text of the Order was, however, a real surprise:
In view of the recent terrorist attack inside the United States Courthouse, the Court considers it necessary to adopt additional and extreme security measures. Effective July 14, 2013, all persons entering the United States Courthouse shall be fully nude except for footwear approved by the United States Marshall and all persons shall remain fully nude at all times while inside the Courthouse. This order shall not apply to approved Court staff and United States employees.
At the end were what appeared to be the signatures of all of our Federal judges.
I e-mailed Mike back: "Why go to the Circuit? I agree that the joke is in questionable taste, but why not just ignore it?"
I received a two word reply: "No joke." What? Why is Mike acting like this is serious? I looked at the order again. It had all of the markings which the Court's electronic filing system puts at the top when something is entered. No, whoever dummied this up copied that from another document. However, I did check the Court's website. There on the homepage was an alert that new security procedures were taking effect along with a link. I clicked on the link and up popped the same order Mike had sent me. Still, this had to be an elaborate hoax. No Court is going to order everyone to go naked in the courthouse. I know judges who get livid if a male lawyer shows up without a coat and tie.
Intrigued (and half convinced that I was having a dream), I called a friend in the Clerk's Office. Sue giggled when she heard my question. "Yes, it is for real. The judges met several times, all hush-hush. One of the law clerks told me to be ready for something very surprising, and we were surprised. Of course, it doesn't apply to us." She paused, giggled again, and said "maybe we can get rid of electronic filing and go back to manual filing. That way we'd see a lot more of you." She giggled again.
Still disbelieving, I called the Judge whom I knew best. Her honor had been a very attractive woman when she was a lawyer in private practice. Age had taken its effect, but she was still a handsome woman with a great voice. "The Chief Judge was really angry about the bombing, and scared, I think. We all were. We met with the Marshalls and FPS several times. Someone from FPS quipped that the only way they could be sure that no one is bringing a bomb or weapon into the courthouse is if everyone came in naked. That gave the Chief the idea. The rest of us voted for it because it doesn't apply to us or our staffs."
My response was, "but, your honor, who wants to see a room full of naked lawyers?"
The Judge replied, "I don't know, I'm thinking that some of you wouldn't be that bad. Besides, I can think of three or four lawyers who practice in our court whom I'm sure you wouldn't mind seeing naked," and she laughed.
"Well, Your Honor, in the spirit of professional solidarity, would you do it," I asked.
The answer came, "maybe, but you'll never know since I have to wear a robe. For all you know, I already have." Ok, so I now knew that this was for real; at least until the Court got enough bad press to change its mind.
The Judge's joke about lawyers I'd like to see nude got me thinking about who that would be. I quickly thought of Amy, with whom I used to work at a big firm in town. She now had a firm with two other ladies in the burbs. Oh shit! Amy was co-counsel with me on a case in Federal Court and we had a pre-trial conference set for July 16. I might be seeing her in reality as well as in my daydreams. I forwarded Mike's e-mail with the order attachment to Amy. My cover message was "Are you aware of this? I checked and it is for real. How do you want to handle the PTC on 7/16?"
About fifteen minutes later, my phone rang. It was Amy. "Yeah, I knew about that."
"You seem rather unperturbed," I said.
"Well, it is certainly weird, but it is a court order, so what am I going to do about it? Besides, and I know this sounds terrible but, I do think that I have a better body than most females lawyers in town. (I thought that too). What do you think, should I shave?"
Slow on the uptake, I replied "shave?"
"My pubic hair, silly. What do you think, bare or hair? What are you going to do?"
Getting into the idea a bit, I said "I don't know what I'll do yet. As for you, I'd really need to compare before and after to tell you which looks better." Then another thought hit me, "oh, geez, I was going to bring Sarah to the PTC."
Amy said, "You better still bring her. We need the extra set of eyes, ears, and hands. Besides, her body will keep Judge X from ogling me for the whole conference."
"Thanks, Amy," I said. "Can I ask her to do this or is that sexual harassment by her employer?"
"Silly, it is a court order, you're not
asking
her to do anything. You're just telling her what the new rules are. I suspect that she'll be perfectly fine with it."
"Why do you think that," I asked.
Amy just chuckled, said "bye," and broke the line.
Sarah was working as my law clerk during the summer between her second and third years at the local law school. Besides accompanying me to court, she often went to the Federal courthouse to use their law library for research. Sarah had been a mildly successful fencer in undergrad, and appeared to have a compact, athletic body that was almost perfectly proportioned. She had long blonde hair and a lovely face with a look that always suggested that she knew something you didn't. She was also very bright, funny, witty, insightful, and hard worker. She was also in that day.
After a few deep breaths, I printed off a copy of the order and walked down to our miniscule library. Sarah worked at a desk there. "Uh, Sarah, I know that you go to the Federal courthouse a lot. Here is something you should see. It will seem like a joke when you read it, but I've checked and it is real." I handed her the order. She read the three sentences swiftly.
"Yeah, I heard that they were thinking about this. A classmate of mine is interning with the Magistrate."
"What do you think about this," I asked. "I was planning on you going with Amy and me to the Ford pretrial on the 16th. That is after this takes effect."
"Oh, sure, I'll go," she said. Then she gave me a long look. "You'll have to comply also." She smiled widely.
I wasn't quite sure how to react to that, so I said "hum" and turned to leave.
Sarah said, "Oh, I do have a question. With the Federal courthouse just across the street, wouldn't it be easier if we stripped off here and just walked over nude?"
"Wouldn't that earn us a lewdness bust from the city police," I asked.
Sarah responded, "I don't know. Wouldn't compliance with a court order be a defense?"
A little later, Terry, my secretary, came into my office. "Sarah showed me this new order. Are you going to take me to the Courthouse after the 14th?"
"You want to wander around the courthouse naked," I asked.
"Sure, what girl wouldn't mind stripping off and having some people see her if she could say that she was compelled to." This was a new insight into my secretary. Terry was 42, divorced with a teenage daughter. I had hired her about a year after I opened my own shop, when I was making enough to pay a living salary and realized that I had to have a secretary. Terry was sharp and a hard worker. She didn't shop online on my time, and never got angry or flustered. I wouldn't say that Terry was a great beauty, but she was a slender pleasant looking woman.
My largely rhetorical question to Sarah the day I learned of the order was answered on July 11, when the Court issued General Order 13-12a. The supplemental order stated that the Courthouse lacked facilities to store the clothes of all who came in. Consequently, the Court had talked with the local police and prosecutors and had reached an agreement that people walking nude on our city's streets would not be arrested or cited provided that they had a notice from the court scheduling an event in the courthouse and they were within a reasonable time of the event and within a reasonable distance of the courthouse. The Court already e-mailed out notices of settings that could be printed out. A machine had been installed at each of the courthouse street doors to provide a time and date-stamped ticket indicating when you left the courthouse. Sarah was genuinely pleased. "Great, that means that I can leave my clothes here, at least when I going with you to court."
Monday morning the 15th, I looked out my office window towards the west door into the Federal courthouse. Sure enough, I saw naked people walking into the courthouse carrying brief cases. Tomorrow, I would be one of those naked people. Amy called me that afternoon. "I talked with Sarah. I'm coming to your office first tomorrow. That way we can all strip off and walk over together."
Trying to be non-chalant, I said "Don't forget a towel to sit on in Judge X's chambers. You don't want your butt sticking to his leather chair."
Our pretrial was at 9:00 a.m. on the 16th. I got in at my usual 7:30, more than a bit nervous. Sarah came in my office at 8:15 to say that she had everything for the pretrial ready and in the conference room. Amy showed up at 8:25 and the three of us sat, talking about the case for a few minutes. At 20 minutes til, Amy stood up, smiled, and said "Well, we better get into our new court uniforms," and started unbuttoning her blouse.
Sarah had worn a rather classy, and tight, dress. She walked over to me, said, "Would you get my zipper" and turned around. To my own surprise, I reached out and unzipped my law clerk's dress. Amy had her skirt off and was reaching back to undo her bra. Oh well, I took off my tie, slipped off my shoes, pulled my shirt out of my trousers, and unbuttoned it. I looked at Amy, who was topless, taking off her panty hose. Sarah was standing topless wearing only panties. When Amy got her hose off, both ladies looked at me. What the hell, I took my trousers and boxers down in one movement, and dropped them over a chair. Amy and Sarah both pushed down their panties and the three of us were standing there nude. Terry could see into the conference room from her work station. She stood up and applauded.
I said, "Well, its time, let's get our stuff and go." We grabbed our briefcases. Fortunately, there was no one else in the elevator, but it was a very strange sensation to step onto a sidewalk in Downtown stark naked at 8:50 a.m. The order was new enough that people Downtown weren't used to it yet. We were drawing some stares, especially Amy and Sarah who both looked absolutely wonderful. We were admitted to the courthouse by clothed FPS. Inside, you could see a mix of clothed court employees and other nude people walking about the main floor.
The pretrial conference went well, although our opposing counsel were two older male lawyers who obviously had not taken the new order as a prod to get into any kind of shape. The Judge made a few rulings, and we ironed out trial procedures. As predicted, the Judge, an ex-Marine Korean War vet, did ogle both Amy and Sarah. So did opposing counsel. I guess I did too, some. The Judge's law clerk, a fairly attractive young lady recently out of law school, was in a business suit. Once we got out business done, everyone stood up to leave. The Judge, looking straight at Amy and Sarah, said "this nudity thing may be ok after all. Maybe my law clerk should do it too." I glanced at the law clerk. To her credit, she looked straight back at the Judge and just smiled.
There was another hurdle. As we walked out of the courthouse, there was a TV news van on the street. A camera pointed at us, and someone holding a microphone said, "Are you lawyers?" Amy and I nodded. The microphone came into our faces. "What do you think about having to be nude in court?" I nodded my head towards Amy to let her answer. She gave a brief, very straight response about how unfortunate it was that terrorism had made this necessary, but safety was important and we all have to make sacrifices. The male reporter could not ignore the nude Sarah. He asked who she was and she explained that she was a law student working for me. What did she think about being nude in court?
"I think it is great. Hopefully, it will introduce more people to the joys of nudism and naturism."
There was another surprise when we got back to the office: Terry welcomed us back from court stark naked. She was a more pleasant looking woman than I thought. Back in the conference room, I said, "Sarah, there is something I want to ask you . . . ."
