RIVERSIDE - When Ellen Weinfurtner got a notice in the mail informing her she'd be trying her civil case in an elementary school, she said she thought it had to be a joke.
"I was incredibly skeptical," Weinfurtner, a Nuevo-based sole practitioner, said.
When she arrived, she said, she felt a little like a student again: Long fold-up metal cafeteria tables serve as counsel tables. Bulletin and dry-erase white boards adorn the walls. Drinking fountains are waist-high. A playground is now a parking lot.
Weinfurtner said her skepticism didn't last long.
"I had a great time trying my case there," she said.
Her long-pending case is among 1,000 that retired judges assigned by the state Judicial Council will be hearing over the next six months as Riverside Superior Court struggles to reduce the massive backlog of civil matters.
State and local court officials recently worked out a deal with the Riverside Unified School District to put the visiting jurists into three classrooms at the former Hawthorne Elementary School campus. The retired judges are hearing cases because Riverside's civil jurists are presiding over criminal cases to help trim another backlog - of criminal matters.
Officials turned to the classrooms because county courthouses lack space for the assigned civil judges. No children have been displaced; nearby, the district built a new Hawthorne campus, which opened this fall.
In Weinfurtner's case, her client was accused of failing to pay her brother half of the proceeds of their dead mother's home. The three-year-old dispute was among the first to be heard at the school, and it settled after three days of trial in January.
Weinfurtner said the classroom atmosphere helped dissipate the tension that normally accompanies taking a matter to trial.
"The atmosphere of the school was kind of comforting. It eased a lot of stress," Weinfurtner, who practices primarily family law, said.
"It was great to be away from the typical hustle and bustle" of the Riverside civil courthouse, she said.
The 1950s-era brick-and-concrete school sits between train tracks and the 91 freeway six miles from downtown Riverside's court center. Workers fitted the school with a wide range of amenities to handle trials.
The three classrooms-turned-courtrooms feature computer stations for judges, clerks and court reporters. A California seal and state and American flags grace the wall behind each judges' bench.
A projector flashes attorneys' exhibits onto another wall opposite a two-tiered jury box.
Three more classrooms across a former lunch quad are now jury assembly and voir dire rooms. And the school office houses court administration.
Richard D. Huffman, a San Diego-based 4th District Court of Appeal justice who is working with Riverside Superior Court and the Judicial Council to improve case flow in the county, said he's not aware of other courts in the state that have moved into classrooms.
"This is an unusual set of circumstances, where you happen to get access to a closed elementary school for six months," Huffman said.
The campus court started Jan. 14 and will continue through June 30. Judges assigned there are E. Michael Kaiser, a retired Riverside judge; Kenneth Ziebarth, a retired San Bernardino judge; William E. Burby Jr., a retired Los Angeles judge; and Lillian Lim, a retired San Diego judge.
The four rotate among the three courtrooms.
Riverside court administrators sent notices to lawyers in 984 cases scheduled for trial at Hawthorne through June 30. Letters also were sent to attorneys in 165 cases that are at least 4½ years old notifying them of a trial-setting hearing to get the cases back on track.
Criteria for the cases, officials said, include whether both sides have declared trial readiness, whether a trial date has been set and whether there is statutory precedence, which moves to the head of the line cases involving the elderly, ill or minors.
Hawthorne's unconventional courtrooms are bringing adjustments for judges, lawyers and staff. A phone system isn't in place yet, so everyone uses cellphones for outside communication.
There isn't a law library on site, so the judges do their research online.
The judges also don't have a lot of privacy. Their chambers are in cubicles in a former school meeting room. Ziebarth, one of the judges hearing the cases, said that, because of the closeness of the cubicles, he and other judges hold in-chambers settlement conferences in classrooms converted to unoccupied jury assembly rooms.
In addition, he said, because of the lack of privacy, security guards briefly usher jurors out of the courtroom when judges and lawyers meet for sidebars to discuss points of law and objections.
All this goes on in the classrooms while, outside ,trains rumble by and blow their whistles on the nearby tracks several times daily. The distraction was one reason Riverside school officials moved Hawthorne. But judges and lawyers say they're willing to deal with the noise to get the cases out.
Ziebarth said the school setting has one major advantage: Parking is more plentiful.
"Sometimes, there's an issue of limited parking for jurors and litigants [at courthouses]," he said. "Not here - we have plenty of parking."
Judges, jurors and lawyers park in spaces once reserved for parents and teachers at the front and side of campus. Part of a former playground serves as parking, too.
Christopher L. Peterson, a civil litigator and partner with Riverside's Reid & Hellyer, has three cases scheduled at Hawthorne in the coming weeks.
Peterson said he's glad to get cases set after several postponements because of unavailability of civil judges.
"The problem is, when you're a civil attorney and a case is continued two or three times, you have to keep ready and prepare for that case as if you're going forward," he said. "It's extra costs for your client, and [there's a] burden of lining up experts."
Richard Fields, Riverside County Superior Court's presiding judge, said in a statement that he's happy civil trials are proceeding.
"The court is determined to meet its No. 1 goal of providing fair and expeditious access to justice for all residents of the county," Fields said. "That includes our civil litigants."
The Hawthorne court is helping to whittle the largest case backlog in the state.
For the past two years, the county's civil judges have heard mostly criminal matters; they have legal precedence because of constitutional speedy-trial deadlines.
At the same time, judges' own civil trials have stacked up, putting on hold hundreds of medical-malpractice, personal-injury and other cases.
Factors leading to the logjam, court officials say, include too few judges to keep up with a county population spike. The court has 76 judges and commissioners; the Judicial Council has said it needs 133.
On the criminal-case front, officials say, they are making progress. A "strike force" of retired and active judges whom Chief Justice Ronald M. George sent to the county last year is helping local judges reduce that backlog.