Our Blog

• In a Class of their Own? Applications for Leave to Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada in Class Actions

  This blog post deals with two areas of law that are near and dear to my heart: class actions and appeals to the Supreme Court of Canada. The question I tackle in this post is whether class actions are more likely than other types of cases to be granted leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

  July 20, 2023
  Paul-Erik Veel
• Fewer Cases Are Getting Leave to Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Why?

  As many readers of our blogs know, we maintain a database that contains a wealth of information about every Supreme Court of Canada leave application decided from January 1, 2018 onward. That dataset allows us to provide a range of analysis and predictions relating to Supreme Court leave applications. But there is one fact that is apparent to all Supreme Court watchers that you don’t need a rich dataset to know: far fewer cases than usual got leave to appeal to the Supreme Court in 2022. The question this blog post tries to answer is: why?

  January 20, 2023
  Paul-Erik Veel
• Factors Influencing the Likelihood of Winning an Appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada

  Earlier this year, we launched our Supreme Court of Canada Decisions Project. Our dataset contains information about every Supreme Court of Canada decision going back to the mid-1950s.

  June 28, 2022
  Paul-Erik Veel
• Early Insights from the Supreme Court of Canada Decisions Project

  In February 2022, we launched our Supreme Court of Canada Decisions Project. The core of that project is a publicly available database that contains detailed information about every Supreme Court of Canada decision going back to the mid-1950s. Anyone interested in analyzing the data for themselves can download a copy of our database and the coding manual at supremecourtdatabase.com.

  April 25, 2022
  Paul-Erik Veel
• Getting Leave to the Supreme Court of Canada: 2021 by the Numbers

  Many of you have seen our weekly blog posts that provide predictions as to how likely it is that particular cases will get leave to the Supreme Court of Canada. Those predictions are based on a dataset of every Supreme Court leave application decision from January 1, 2018 to the present. While those predictions are one use of our data, it’s not the only use. Here we present another: a quantitative year in review of leave applications decided by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2021.

  January 5, 2022
  Paul-Erik Veel
• High Time for Shorter Trials

  The bench and bar have long recognized that lengthy trials decrease access to justice. That is no surprise: trials are expensive, long trials more so, and lawyers generally think that the longer the trial, the longer it takes to receive a decision.

  December 1, 2021
  David Salter

  Sam Hargreaves
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for July 29, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on July 29, 2021.

  July 28, 2021
  Robin Nyamekye
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for July 22, 2021

  Here is a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on July 22, 2021.

  July 20, 2021
  Solomiya Zakharchuk
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for July 15, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on Thursday, July 15, 2021.

  July 13, 2021
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for July 8, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on July 8, 2021.

  July 6, 2021
  Blerta Gjoci
• The First Three Months of the SCC Leave Project: A Successful Start

  Three months ago, we launched our Supreme Court of Canada Leave Project. Part of that project is a machine learning algorithm that provides predictions of the likelihood of different cases getting leave to the Supreme Court. Since launch, we’ve made fourteen weekly predictions for leave applications to the Supreme Court of Canada. Our model has provided predictions for the likelihood that leave would be granted from 123 decisions of Courts of Appeal across the country.

  June 25, 2021
  Paul-Erik Veel
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for June 24, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on June 24, 2021.

  June 22, 2021
  Sana Halwani
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for June 17, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on June 17, 2021.

  June 15, 2021
• Did COVID-19 make it harder to get leave to the Supreme Court?

  As many will know, Lenczner Slaght maintains an ongoing database of every application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada that was decided from January 1, 2018 onward. We use this data to train a machine learning algorithm to predict the likelihood of cases getting leave, which we use for various purposes.

  June 11, 2021
  Paul-Erik Veel
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for June 10, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on June 10, 2021.

  June 8, 2021
  Madison Robins
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for June 3, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on June 3, 2021.

  June 1, 2021
  Scott Azzopardi
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for May 27, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on May 27, 2021.

  May 26, 2021
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for May 20, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on May 20, 2021.

  May 18, 2021
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for May 13, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on May 13, 2021.

  May 11, 2021
  Sean Lewis
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for May 6, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on May 6, 2021.

  May 4, 2021
  Paul-Erik Veel
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for April 29, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on April 29, 2021.

  April 27, 2021
  Lauren Mills Taylor
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for April 22, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on April 22, 2021.

  April 20, 2021
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for April 15, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on April 15, 2021.

  April 13, 2021
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for April 8, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on April 8, 2021.

  April 7, 2021
  Paul-Erik Veel
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for April 1, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on April 1, 2021.

  March 30, 2021
• The SCC Leave Project: Predictions for March 25, 2021

  Here’s a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on March 25, 2021. Each week, we’ll be providing a short blog post that summarizes some of the upcoming cases and gives a prediction, of the probability that leave will be granted. These predictions will be based on our proprietary machine learning model and dataset of every leave application decision released by the Supreme Court of Canada from January 1, 2018 onward.

  March 23, 2021
  Paul-Erik Veel
• The SCC Leave Project: A Machine Learning Algorithm to Predict the Likelihood of Getting Leave to the Supreme Court of Canada

  In the spring of 2020, we posted an analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2019 Year in Review and summarized some of the statistics found in that document. Unfortunately, the general statistics found in the 2019 Year Review were high level and limited the analysis we could provide about what was happening at the Supreme Court of Canada. We also could not find any publicly available and current datasets that would allow us to provide a more detailed analysis. 

  March 22, 2021
  Paul-Erik Veel
• Getting Leave to Appeal to the Supreme Court: Empirical Insights from Tax Cases

  As I have posted before, I’m a fan of using empirical data to inform legal practice. Much as the evidence-based medicine movement has taken hold in the field of medicine, the practice of law should, wherever possible, rely on objective data to inform our decision-making. Unfortunately, empirical legal work remains at an early stage. While there are some academics embracing empirical analysis, much of legal academic scholarship does not involve the quantitative analysis of empirical data. In my view, it is important for lawyers to test our intuitions whenever we can by reference to whatever data is available.

  January 20, 2021
  Paul-Erik Veel
• A Quantitative Look at the Supreme Court of Canada

  Lawyers are trained to do close and careful reading of cases. We are experts in textual analysis of individual decisions, and we can spend hours arguing over what individual paragraphs in Supreme Court of Canada decisions mean. Yet while individual decisions are important, so are the aggregate trends. Quantitative data can reveal important information that lawyers can use to engage in more effective advocacy and better inform our clients as to what to expect.

  May 4, 2020
  Paul-Erik Veel