December 5, 2018 MCLE Presentation
Team John Mortimer discussed Little Red Riding Hood by Charles Perrault in its presentation Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? The team members are Judicial Master Ken Fernandez, Attorney Master Abram Feuerstein, Attorney Master and Emeritus Peter Mort, Barrister Joshlynn Pulliam, Barrister Gabriel White, Barrister K. Fredric Willis, Associate Laurie Burns and Associate Kiki Manti Engel.
Prior to the commencement of their presentation, Attorney Master and Emeritus Peter Mort regaled the audience as Horace Rumpole of Rumpole of the Bailey, John Mortimer’s most famous work.
Hon. Ken Fernandez led the discussion with a summary of the classic fairy tale, which does not have the happy ending that one is used to….in this fairy tale, grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood die. He summarized the three segments of the presentation, which were performed in teams of two to five.
The first segment was A Glimpse Through The Looking Glass, a juvenile dependency detention hearing which occurred immediately after the events surrounding Red’s death. County of Mortimer’s Child Protective Services sought to detain Red’s sisters, Teenage Red and Preschool Red, from Mother Hood, who allowed her daughter to travel alone through the forest, where she met her untlmely death. Judicial Master Ken Fernandez, Attorney Master L. Alexandra Fong (a guest “team member" for this skit), Barrister Gabriel White, and Associate Kiki Manti Engel portrayed the attorneys and Mother Hood in this vignette.
After this vignette, two commercials were shown with elements of Little Red Riding Hood - the first, a 1980s-era commercial for Sugar Free Dr. Pepper; the second, a 1990s-era commercial for Honey Nut Cheerios.
The second segment was broken into two video clips. The first clip featured Barrister K. Fredric Willis and Associate Kiki Manti Engel, as they showed a client consultation, involving BB Wolf, Inc. dba A Place for Grandma, a nursing home where grandmother was staying. The second clip featured Attorney Master Abram Feuerstein, Barrister K. Fredric Willis and Associate Kiki Manti Engel as they discussed the difficulties they face when dealing with unpopular clients in their practice.
A third commercial was shown, featuring an alarm called “Wolf Alert.” This commercial was voiced by Attorney Master Abram Feuerstein and featured Little Red Riding Hood and Grandma.
The third segment of the presentation discussed aggravating and mitigating factors that went into determining a prison sentence for a crime that had an indeterminate sentence. The audience was to assume that Red and Grandma survived and the Big Bad Wolf had been convicted of physical elder abuse and assault with the intent to commit great bodily injury. Fabulous prizes were handed out to those audience members who were able to correctly identify aggravating and mitigating factors.
After the presentation concluded, votes were cast as to how Team John Mortimer ranked for its presentation on Little Red Riding Hood by Charles Perrault. Results of the votes will be announced at the September 2019 Meeting of the Leo A. Deegan Inn of Court.