. No commercial system that I have seen goes directly from normal to "direct law"
Well it's possible in Airbus. In a benign way it happens when you have lost both Radio Altimeters aircraft remains in normal law but when gear is lowered it goes to direct law. The other examples are with IR faults. When there's double IR failure with the second not self detected it goes into direct law till faulty IR is switched off and ELACs are reset. With tripple IR failure from normal law it will irreversibly go into direct law.