Challenges of Making Municipal, Superior Courts One.

IT'S been a long time coming, but L.A.'s trial court system is about to undergo the most extensive restructuring in its 150-year history: a revamping that will be felt most by judges, but also by attorneys and hundreds of thousands of citizens.

After two failed attempts, the county's 428 judges voted last month 318 to 91 (with 19 abstentions) to combine the 24 separate municipal courts and the Superior Court into a single court system of Superior Court judges.

But the hardest work lies ahead in integrating these two different systems into a smoothly operating court system.

One of the biggest challenges will be meshing the different types of caseloads handled by the two court systems.

"The real difference is in volume of cases vs. complexity," said John Clarke, executive officer of the Superior Court. "The Superior Court has a relatively high volume of cases with a high degree of complexity, while the former municipal courts have an extraordinarily heavy volume of often relatively simple cases. Each are handled in a different way, and the challenge is going to come in integrating them."

On a practical level, Superior Court judges have grown used to handling the more complex cases, which often are more prominent and attract more attention -- the big business cases and the high-profile murder cases. Meanwhile, the Municipal Court judges typically have run the treadmill of simpler misdemeanor cases, like traffic violations, with many of these judges clearly hoping for advancement to the Superior Court.

In recent years, the pressure has built from the public, business groups and attorneys to combine the two systems. It was thought that this would give courts more flexibility to move judges around, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing backlogs.

In June 1998, California voters approved a ballot measure allowing counties to merge their court systems; the state Legislature sweetened the pot by earmarking tens of millions of dollars in additional funds for those courts that did unify. Within a year, 56 of California's 58 counties had unified their courts.

But L.A. lagged behind as its Superior Court judges twice rejected unification measures put forward by impatient Municipal Court judges. The Superior Court judges were concerned that the L.A. court system, already the largest in the nation, would become too unwieldy. And some simply didn't want to dabble in cases that had typically been handled by Municipal Court judges.

The prestige issue was largely diffused by an agreement reached between the two court systems in early December that would allow most judges to keep their current assignments in a unified trial court.

"If there is any change in assignments, we expect it to be gradual," said James Bascue, assistant presiding judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court. "The change will probably be felt most by new judges."

Those judges, Bascue said, would most likely be assigned to cases typically handled by the former Municipal Court judges. Then, after a year or two, they would be evaluated to see if they should be promoted to courtrooms that see many of the more complex and high-profile cases.

"The hierarchical system we have today will survive, just under one roof," said one attorney familiar with the unification process.

There will be one major change in assignments, however, because a new court for handling "complex cases" -- typically complex business litigation -- will need judges assigned to it. This is a change that has long been sought by attorneys and business groups.

The size issue may not be so easily addressed.

"With the unification, we now have a trial court system in Los Angeles that is larger than the judicial systems of 42 states," said Superior Court Judge Veronica McBeth, the former presiding judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court.

McBeth said there is a concern about trying to preserve the community feel of the municipal courts, which serve smaller geographical districts than the regional Superior Court.

"Smaller courts tend to have more close ties with the community," McBeth said. "The judges are elected from smaller electorates and there is a citywide, as opposed to countywide, outlook."