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This paper draws on a four‐year qualitative study that examines changes to legal processes related to the response to domestic violence in Seattle that began before and continued through the COVID‐19 pandemic, to examine a series of crisis temporalities that were exacerbated by the pandemic and associated lockdowns. In reflecting on the crisis temporalities that mark this research project, I underscore how such crises can also create conditions that lead to long overdue social change. In this case, the modernisation of a court system that for too‐long served as an obstacle to survivors' legal protection and facilitated abusers' ability to engage in slow violence during Domestic Violence Protection Order (DVPO) hearings. This paper thus highlights the 'temporal affordances' of longitudinal research that enable analysis to better understand the factors that motivate transition over time, particularly those in traditional institutions like the legal system. This paper draws on a four‐year qualitative study that examines changes to legal processes related to the response to domestic violence in Seattle that began before and continued through the COVID‐19 pandemic, to examine a series of crisis temporalities that were exacerbated by the pandemic and associated lockdowns. In reflecting on the crisis temporalities that mark this research project, I underscore how such crises can also create conditions that lead to long overdue social change. This paper thus highlights the 'temporal affordances' of longitudinal research that enable analysis to better understand the factors that motivate transition over time, particularly those in traditional institutions like the legal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]