What happened when 180,000 people needed legal protection during a crisis—and how smart agent systems could prevent it from happening again
The images from January's LA fires were devastating: entire neighborhoods reduced to ash, families fleeing with nothing but the clothes on their backs, evacuation centers packed with displaced residents. But there's another crisis that didn't make the headlines—one that could have been prevented with smarter technology.
When the fires forced courthouse closures across Los Angeles County, something terrible happened to the legal system's most vulnerable clients. Domestic violence victims couldn't get restraining orders. Families lost access to emergency custody hearings. Elder abuse cases went unprocessed. For weeks, when people needed legal protection most, the system simply wasn't there.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially as someone who works on AI systems designed to handle complex, high-stakes decisions. What if we could build legal systems that actually got better during crises instead of collapsing? What if AI agent orchestration—the same principles that make resilient computer networks—could revolutionize how we deliver justice during emergencies?
Let me paint you a picture of how bad it got:
January 7th: The Palisades fire forces evacuation of three major courthouses. Thousands of pending cases—including 127 domestic violence matters—suddenly have nowhere to go.
January 10th: Pasadena Superior Court closes due to smoke damage. Another 89 emergency protective order requests join the growing backlog.
January 14th: Van Nuys courthouse is overwhelmed, trying to handle cases from five different jurisdictions. Processing times stretch from days to weeks.
January 21st: A victim advocate tells me (off the record) about a woman who couldn't get a restraining order renewed because the paperwork was trapped in an evacuated courthouse. Her abuser found her at the evacuation center.
This isn't just about bureaucratic delays. When legal protections fail during a crisis, real people get hurt.
The LA fires exposed three critical vulnerabilities that exist in legal systems everywhere:
Our legal system is built like a house of cards. Each courthouse handles cases for its specific geographic area. When that courthouse closes, everyone in that area is just... stuck.
What Happened During the Fires:
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ LA COUNTY COURT CRISIS │
│ │
│ ┌─ Altadena ─────┐ ┌─ Pasadena ────┐ ┌─ Santa Monica ──┐ │
│ │ Status: EVAC │ │ Status: CLOSED │ │ Status: DAMAGED │ │
│ │ Cases: 156 │ │ Cases: 89 DV │ │ Emergency: NONE │ │
│ │ Staff: GONE │ │ Files: TRAPPED │ │ Delay: 3 WEEKS │ │
│ └────────────────┘ └───────────────┘ └─────────────────┘ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ └───────────────────┼───────────────────┘ │
│ ▼ │
│ ┌─────── VAN NUYS COURTHOUSE ──────┐ │
│ │ Status: OVERWHELMED │ │
│ │ Normal Load: 45 cases/week │ │
│ │ Crisis Load: 340 cases/week │ │
│ │ Processing: BREAKING DOWN │ │
│ └──────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ │
│ Result: 2,800+ cases in backlog, victims without protection │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
It's like having a hospital where, if the emergency room closes, there's literally nowhere else sick people can go. Insane, right?
During normal times, courts barely talk to police, who barely talk to social services, who barely talk to victim advocates. During the fires, these communication gaps became chasms.