Paul-Erik Veel

Has anyone tried reading or listening to Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?

I’m digging the idea of a lot more long form Rome content, but it also seems daunting and maybe too much.

But short answer: we are nowhere near the line.

A corrupt judiciary or a process that is completely at odds with natural justice is a basis not to enforce a foreign judgment and, although less commonly considered, probably a basis to decline letters rogatory.

We routinely enforce foreign judgments from non-democratic countries that are less committed to the rule of law than the US. The tests for enforcing foreign judgments or letters rogatory aren’t really based on an evaluation of the foreign system as a whole.

The OBA's Section Executive Election is taking place until June 18. Have your say in who fills these roles. Only Section members can vote for the executive. To participate in the voting process, you must enroll in a section by 2 p.m. today (June 17). cbaapps.org/oba_Sec_Enro...

I’ve said repeatedly that you shouldn’t use ChatGPT for legal work.

But this cake recipe it gave me is out of control good!

The critical mass has been building for a while. I think the tipping point was hit today (at least for Canadian law social media).

The kids were very much into 1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins on the way to swimming lessons this morning. Great success!

Time to go back to school!

Tonight I have the pleasure of teaching the first class of Private International Law at U of T Law. I’ve taught this class several times, but not since the pandemic. Teaching is energizing, and infinitely more so in person than virtually!

The Federal Liberals: “if we can accommodate Bob Rae and Christy Clark, there’s a place for you too!”

(To be clear, although this is a joke, this is also why they’re historically successful!)

The future is always uncertain, and there's a lot we can't control. Who knows what the next decade will bring. But I'm very grateful for the last decade and optimistic about the next!

I'm grateful to live in a city and a country that is, in the overall arc of human history, incredibly safe and economically stable.

I'm grateful to be a partner in a law firm with excellent colleagues, doing work that I find engaging.

I'm grateful for friends, both near and far. Little kids can get in the way of seeing your friends as much as you once did, but I'm grateful for friends who are tolerant of that!

Ultimately, the conclusion that reflection leads me to is that I'm very fortunate and I have a lot to be grateful for:

I'm grateful to have a family that I love, including an amazing spouse and two adorable children.

Today, I have a milestone birthday, where I enter a new decade of my life. In general, I don't attribute much significance to my birthday, but this one has caused me to reflect a bit more.

Data-Driven Decisions | Lenczner Slaght

For those who are interested, the full post with lots more data and charts is here: litigate.com/data-driven-...

-The Supreme Court has gotten a faster at issuing leave decisions, and they've been particularly diligent in trying to make sure that leave applications aren't outstanding for too long.

-Private law cases were up: 35% of leaves granted were in private law cases (as opposed to public law or criminal cases), which is a big increase over the last few years.

-The rate of leave applications granted is down slightly from last year: just 6.4% of leaves applicants were granted leave (and just 8.9% of leave applications where litigants weren't self-represented).

-The number of cases in which the Court granted leave to appeal was down slightly from 40 in 2023 to 34 in 2024. This is pretty much in line with recent averages, and much better than the the low watermark of just leaves granted in 2022.

Now that 2024 is done, it's time for our Lenczner Slaght year in review about activity at the Supreme Court of Canada. Our first post is on leave applications. We'll have a later post on appeal decisions, so stay tuned!

Here's the high level summary on leave applications:

My 2025 New Year’s resolution is to re-engage over here.

Twitter (especially law Twitter) used to be a great place with great people. It has since become a hellscape, but it seems like there is a critical mass over here now! 🥳

I hope we start seeing more stats like this for lower appeal courts well. We have hunches about how the justice system works, the number of self-reps, how they fare etc, but great to see it in more concrete terms. www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic... #SCC

Last call to sign your for the Toronto lawyer holiday cookie swap! If you’re interested in baking and receiving some tasty holiday treats (and hanging out with some of your law Twitter/BlueSky favourites IRL), email or DM me!

Ok, Toronto Law BlueSky (and Twitter): it’s time for the holiday cookie swap!

Everyone is welcome in the spirit of increasing camaraderie (and, also, eating tasty cookies)!

If you’d like to participate, DM or email me, and I’ll find a date that works for as many people as possible!

Courts looking at how to deal with LLMs and generative AI generally should read the great way Alberta courts have dealt with it: www.albertacourts.ca/kb/resources...

Human in the loop, and putting the responsibility on those humans, is the way!

Ok, I’ve finished The History of Rome. What podcast should I listen to next?

So, like, do I still post on the other site as well until they start making me pay? Or do I just give up now because of the hellscape it has become already?

How do we get the rest of Canadian #lawtwitter over?