Earthquake: The Long Road Back : Area Courts Struggling to Resume Operations : Justice: Officials deal with their own version of gridlock in an attempt to rebuild the Valley’s quake-scarred legal system.

SAN FERNANDO — Donning hard hats, judges were allowed back into their condemned San Fernando courthouse Thursday to retrieve case files, grab computers and begin the daunting task of reconstructing a quake-battered legal system.

“We’re taking only essential materials: case processing documents, computer equipment and essential court documents,” said Thomas J. Zecchini, a court official.

Most of the courtrooms will be moved by Wednesday to the Van Nuys courthouse, itself damaged in the quake. Two floors there remained closed Thursday, with the other five open.

The Northridge earthquake has created two weeks of havoc in the Valley court system. Some examples:

* Due to security concerns, all Superior Court criminal matters from both San Fernando and Van Nuys will be heard in the main Van Nuys Superior Court building, meaning all civil judges are being displaced to less stylish trailers.

* Prosecutors in the district attorney’s office who are used to having their own offices are suddenly faced with sharing office space with two roommates as San Fernando prosecutors move into the cramped Van Nuys quarters.

* Jurors in the trial of Lyle Menendez, on trial for the murder of his wealthy parents, were forced earlier this week to deliberate in a trailer behind the Van Nuys courthouse.

* Prisoners being held in a cell on the fifth floor of the Van Nuys Municipal Court were trapped briefly when an aftershock Thursday jammed a door shut.

Court officials had no real timetable for the resumption of normal operations.

“It’s difficult to say when we’re going to be up and running because the clerk’s office has to find all of those files,” said Terry D. Wilson, the district chief at San Fernando Superior Court, who is overseeing the transfer of about 30,000 files to a makeshift clerk’s office in an abandoned Health Department building in Van Nuys.

The San Fernando courthouse is expected to be uninhabitable for most of this year.

“They said a year, and if it’s sooner, be grateful,” said Judge Judith M. Ashmann, who supervises the San Fernando Superior Court.

A four-inch water line ruptured during the initial shaking, causing water damage on at least two floors of the courthouse.

Engineers this week were forced to use wooden posts to shore up the building and reinforce a total of 20 damaged support columns on three floors.

The building was initially declared safe, so Ashmann and others began the arduous cleanup process. But an internal inspection three days after the magnitude 6.6 quake found the damage.

The biggest problem, according to Ashmann, “was getting anyone to focus attention on us.”

Displaced from her own office, Ashmann has struggled to develop an emergency plan to find courtrooms for her judges and then to handle an extensive backlog of cases, including two ongoing death penalty murder trials.

“It’s a major crisis,’ Ashmann said.

The seven-floor Van Nuys Superior Court building is structurally sound, but the temblor caused asbestos contamination throughout the building.

“There is asbestos coating on the beams, and when the earthquake came some of that shook down,” said Jan Pollard, spokeswoman for the county Internal Services Division, which maintains county facilities.

Municipal Court buildings in San Fernando and Van Nuys received little damage and have been in operation since Monday.

Two San Fernando Superior Court judges who hear family law matters have been moved next door to the relatively unscathed Municipal Court building, where they have continued to hear cases.

At least nine of the San Fernando judges are being reassigned to Van Nuys, causing officials to reopen six courtrooms located in nearby trailers that were mothballed more than two years ago.

“I don’t know if we’re going to have room for everybody,” said Zoe Venhuizen, court manager in Van Nuys Superior Court.

Superior Court administrators are hoping to borrow at least one courtroom in the Municipal Court building, this in addition to the four courtrooms that have already been devoted to San Fernando Municipal Court cases.

There have been minor squabbles among judges who were less than happy to move to the cramped temporary courtrooms that were intentionally downsized so as not to intimidate children who appeared in the former dependency court facility, according to court employees.

Clerks who have worked and maintained files in their own courtrooms--for years in some cases--are also said to be angry about moving into temporary accommodations.

Amid the chaos earlier this week, two Van Nuys Superior Court judges overseeing criminal calendars managed to tackle a few cases Monday morning in temporary courtrooms.

By Wednesday all criminal judges had a courtroom and one jury resumed to hear evidence in a lengthy trial for an accused serial rapist.

The defense attorneys in the San Fernando Branch of the Public Defender’s office have also been forced to join their colleagues on the 10th floor of the Van Nuys Municipal Court building, but officials said they have plenty of room for the 16 people expected to move in.