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inns of courtLegal Jeopardy!The best Inns Of Court presentationsget all of its membersinvolved. Instead of justhaving a group standing upperforming for their adoring fans inthe audience, the best groups makethe adoring fans part of the performance.Judge Maier’s group (starringErika Littlefield, Lisa Mendes,Matthew Mraule, Nick Casper,Nicholas Jay, Janine Ogando, PatrickPerez, Scott Reep, LaureenBethards and John Warnlof) provedthis old saw one more time with agreat “Legal Jeopardy!” presentationat the March 14, 2013, meeting.If you’ve ever watched an episodeof “Jeopardy!,” seen the ”SaturdayNight Live” always hilarious“Celebrity Jeopardy!” skits, or evencaught any part of the “E! True HollywoodStory” on Alex Trebek, youknow how “Jeopardy!” works. Theygive you the answer, you give themthe question!The twist here is that all of the categorieswere legal in nature. Eventhe “Movies” category related tolaw movies, like the always realistic“Jury Duty” (Pauly Shore’s greatestrole). The most basic questions werefairly easy; most practitioners inthat field would quickly get them.However, the difficulty quickly escalatedand most teams spent theentire night in the negative. Yes, it’strue. An entire room full of veteranattorneys and judges got the vastmajority of the questions ... wrong.Partial credit should go to JudgeMaier’s group for crafting increasinglychallenging questions. However,more of the credit (or blame)should go to the groups for buzzingin too soon or failing to answerin the form of a question. Theseare basic “Jeopardy!” tenets, yetthey tripped up so many groups.Groups had plenty of enthusiasmfor the rules of the game and werenot bashful about alerting JudgeMaier’s group when the answeringgroups made the most basic mistakes.When it comes to a raucousenergy at an Inns Of Court meeting,you don’t have to turn up the stovetoo much to get that water to boil.Inns President Scott Reep playedAlex Trebek, but went old schoolTrebek, donning a perm wig androcking a red blazer. He wielded abuzzer like it was a light saber, strikingdown the groups that daredanswer incorrectly (although, itshould be noted, that actuallydidn’t make them more powerfulthan you could ever imagine).The groups careened helplesslytowards “Final Jeopardy!,” sadly arrivingto the championship roundmostly empty handed. Only twogroups were actually in the positive,which meant that only twogroups could even really take partby Matthew Talbotin “Final Jeopardy!”It came down to Judge Cram’sgroup (my group) versus JudgeMockler’s group for all the marbles!Judge Mockler’s group was up byapproximately $2,000, so they hadthe advantage. Before we receivedthe “Final Jeopardy!” answer, bothgroups had to enter our wagers. Ourgroup decided to bet a single dollar,pinning our hopes on Judge Mockler’sgroup failing. It was the conservativeplay and I was concerned.Were we betting not to lose? But Iwas assured it was the way to go.Plus, you have to have hope.The “Final Jeopardy!” answercame in: “This justice said: ‘It isbetter, so the Fourth Amendmentteaches us, that the guilty sometimesgo free than the citizens besubject to easy arrest.’”We guessed Justice Douglas,which was correct! Judge Mockler’sgroup guessed another, incorrectjustice. What’s more, they had wageredso much money that they fellbehind us into second place! Our$1 betting plan had worked! ClearEyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose!It was an extremely successfulevening that helped bring the InnsOf Court community together in afun and funny way. s32MAY 2013