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 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.

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.