The high road to fund-raising

Alex Coolman

NEWPORT BEACH -- The instructions to the small crowd assembled in the

Land Rover showroom Friday morning sounded a little ominous.

“The cars normally don’t roll over,” said Ron Young, director of sales

for Land Rover Orange County. “But if they do, you’ll be wearing your

seat belt. You’ll be quite safe.”

Was this encouragement? The crowd, a group of executives from the Irvine

law firm of Snell & Wilmer, decided that it was. And only a few minutes

later, these otherwise responsible attorneys went whizzing off in a

caravan of high-end sport-utility vehicles for an off-road adventure near

Lake Elsinore.

The point of the trip, besides creating a bit of dust-throwing vehicular

mayhem, was to raise money for Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

After spending the morning driving around hairpin turns and trying not to

roll over, they came back after lunch to write a few checks.

When all was said and done, the event was expected to raise about $750,

organizers said.

That first part, though -- the avoiding-rolling-over part -- gave

pause to a few of the gathered professionals.

“I drove Jeeps in the army for quite awhile,” said Frank Cronin, a

partner with Snell & Wilmer. Then he added an important note: “That was

30 years ago. I’m just a lawyer.”

Event organizers described the terrain the lawyers would handle as

“obstacle-laden,” with “steep climbs and descents.” The technician told

the group that the most difficult drives would measure about 3 on a scale

of 1 to 5 in terms of off-road terror.

“It’s a fun day instead of a working day,” Cronin added before climbing

into a Land Rover that looked like it was absolutely, positively, almost

certainly, bound to stay upright.