Jeanine Pirro

AS THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY for New York’s Westchester County, Jeanine Pirro, 45, has championed the cause of battered wives, crusaded against Internet pedophiles and discussed the O.J. Simpson case on Larry King Live and Geraldo Rivera’s CNBC talk show. But back home in Harrison, N.Y., friends and coworkers also admire Pirro’s fine legal form. “When she walks into a room, heads turn,” says family chum Donald Trump. Her trick? “Gallons of eye concealer,” says the 5’4″ Pirro. She also exercises regularly, takes vitamins and drinks a liter of water each morning before leaving the Italianate mansion she shares with attorney husband Albert and their children Cristi, 11, and Alexander, 8. “I never saw her bedraggled,” says Michael Cherkasky, whom she defeated for the DA’s job in 1993. “Even in the rain. She was someone who managed to maintain a certain appearance.” It’s a lesson Pirro learned from her mother, Esther Ferris, 66, a onetime department-store model. “My mom is still whispering in my ear, ‘Look as good as you can,’ ” Pirro says. “She taught me that being the best you can be in your appearance as well as your intellect was primary.” And in politics, she admits, it’s mandatory. “A woman needs to be put together more than a man,” she says. “If she isn’t, she looks like she’s not up for the job. There’s a different standard. Those are the rules, and I have to live by them.”