Wonder why your Trust or Will lawsuit is stuck in court?  This interactive map from the California Bar may shed some light on the reason:

That’s 83 courtrooms lost in Los Angeles County alone.  A total of 53 courthouses and 204 courtrooms no longer operating throughout California.  And that is at a time when we needed more courtrooms due to substantial population growth, not less.

Worse yet, specialty courtrooms, like probate, are getting hit particularly hard as matters are consolidated into a single courthouse or even a single judge to be heard.  This causes what used to be a long and painfully slow process to be much longer and more painfully slow.

There is no sugar coating this crisis in our court system.  There must be better efforts made to fund our access to justice.  Most people may not think much about the court system, until you need help with your legal problem.  And if you have a legal issue that must be taken to court, you want the court to be available to you to resolve your legal matter in as little time as possible.

But with 204 courtrooms closing their doors, access to justice has gotten far worse in California.  How could the most populous state in our nation be suffering such a catastrophic court failure?  Ask the legislature, perhaps they have an idea of why basic access to justice is so hard to come by.  Without the proper financial support, our legal crisis will continue.  And, as William E. Gladstone famously said, “Justice delayed is justice denied.”  Time to stop delaying access to proper justice in our court system.