Key questions remain over LA court ransomware attack

The Los Angeles County Superior Court inched closer to normalcy on Wednesday, two days after it reopened following a ransomware attack that forced all 36 courthouses to close.

Attorneys were able to appear remotely for their hearings on Wednesday, which was not possible the day before. And electronic filing of documents in open cases was possible again, court officials said. However, many questions about what happened, what was affected, and what was now working remained unanswered.

In a press statement issued Wednesday evening, the court advised that it would now be providing "real-time" updates via its Temporary Information Center of all public-facing court functions impacted by the attack, including the MyJuryDuty Portal, remote appearances and electronic filing.

Judge Randolph M. Hammock called about a dozen matters Wednesday morning at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. But he cautioned a number of the attorneys who appeared in his courtroom and virtually via LACourtConnect that he was continuing their cases so he could read their papers.

"Good luck with the court madness," one attorney said to Hammock as his hearing concluded.

"They say it's going to take months to get back to full capacity," Hammock replied.

An attorney told the Daily Journal that they were able to electronically file documents, but once conformed the case file online did not seem to be populating, and the documents did not show in the register of actions.

"So, I have no idea who can access them; obviously we can't access them in the portal, so we can't see other parties' filings as well," the attorney said. "Nothing seems to have been added since July 18. We also almost exclusively use the attorney portal which is still completely down."

Some of the public access terminals on the first floor at Stanley Mosk were switched on Wednesday morning, but users said they were not able to access their cases.

The court reopened Tuesday morning, however, most of the electronic services that entered common use during the pandemic remained offline, so attorneys and judges could not get much done.

Officials have said very little publicly about the ransomware attack that forced the nation's largest trial court system to close. A statement from the court said that a ransomware attack began July 19, which coincided with the global CrowdStrike outage. However, a court employee said on Tuesday that the court's system went down on July 18.

Eyewitnesses at the Spring Street Courthouse on Tuesday said they saw attorneys leaving the courthouse shortly after they arrived. An attorney drove to the Spring Street Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles for a hearing and found that the judge was not there. Public-facing employees said that management did not share much information beyond the fact that the court's system was hacked.

A courtroom clerk estimated on Tuesday that 95% of the matters on judges' calendars were being continued for a variety of reasons, such as inaccessibility of documents or inability of attorneys to appear remotely or in person.

Asked, court officials did not say what percentage of cases were continued. They stressed that many matters were handled on Tuesday, including jury selection and the hearing of temporary restraining order requests.

They did not say how judges were keeping records while the system was down.

Data breaches affecting more than 500 California residents must be reported to Attorney General Rob Bonta's office. Asked if the ransomware attack had been reported, court officials said they "immediately engaged with local, state, and federal law enforcement on Friday."

Asked how much data was compromised, court officials said they "immediately engaged with security experts on Friday to ascertain and assess the full scope of the ransomware attack and the potential for compromised data." Bonta's office did not respond to queries.

The chaos created by the ransomware attack is likely to compound existing issues faced by the court. Unlimited civil caseloads in Los Angeles have nearly doubled over the last decade. Judges were juggling an average of 847 cases as of December 2023.

Also, court staff levels are expected to drop in the coming year. Gov. Gavin Newsom in June signed a budget that cuts $97 million from the state's trial courts for Fiscal Year 2024-25. Los Angeles County Superior Court officials quickly announced a "voluntary separation incentive program" for staff that they said would reduce next year's operating budget by $30.3 million.