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What Happened to the Los Angeles County Municipal Courts — and Where They Are Now
What Happened to the Los Angeles County Municipal Courts — and Where They Are Now
By Steven Brownstein | The Background Investigator
A Brief History: The Rise of Municipal Courts in Los Angeles County
For much of the 20th century, Los Angeles County had two tiers of trial courts: Superior Courts and Municipal Courts...
The Unification Movement: Prop 220 and the Birth of a One-Tier Trial Court
By the late 1990s, California’s court system faced a challenge: inefficiency, duplication, and uneven resource distribution...
Where Are They Now? The Former Municipal Courthouses Still Serve — Under a New Name
Though the municipal courts as separate entities are gone, their physical courthouses remain...
The Impact of Unification
The merger created a more efficient, flexible, and unified court system. Judges and courtrooms can now be reassigned...
How to Find the Right Courthouse Today
Today, the Los Angeles Superior Court system assigns courthouses based on ZIP code and case type... https://www.lacourt.org
Conclusion: Municipal Courts Are Gone — But Not Forgotten
The Los Angeles County Municipal Courts may have disappeared from the organizational chart, but their buildings, judges... but their buildings, judges, and community roles live on within the Superior Court system.
The unification brought greater consistency and resource sharing, but the community-based nature of justice — courts embedded in the neighborhoods they serve — remains a defining feature of justice in Los Angeles.
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