‘A trend of systemic prolixity’

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Brevity is the soul of wit, Shakespeare wrote, but a new study says Supreme Court of Canada decisions have never been longer.

Between 2017 and 2025, the mean judgment length has nearly doubled from 10,758 words to 20,324 words. According to The Unprecedented Prolixity of the Wagner Court by Paul Warchuk, an assistant law professor at the University of New Brunswick, more than a dozen judgments in recent years have exceeded 40,000 words.

“The numbers are staggering,” the paper says. 

“An average judgment now exceeds the standard word limit of Canadian law journals and rivals the average Shakespearean play.”

Rulings that frequently top 20,000 words “impose significant cognitive and economic burdens on anyone seeking to understand the law,” it concludes, “so much so that it is unrealistic to expect either members of the public or legal practitioners to read these judgments in full.”

This, as Chief Justice Richard Wagner has prioritized public outreach. 

If he “and the puisne judges of the court are as committed to accessibility as they purport to be, they must make a collective effort to reverse this trend of systemic prolixity,” Warchuk writes. 

The peer-reviewed study is to be published in December by The Canadian Bar Review. 

An institutional change

Warchuk used AI to analyze a dataset of Supreme Court judgments from 1975 to 2025. It was provided free through the Access to Algorithmic Justice Project (A2AJ), co-hosted by Sean Rehaag of Osgoode Hall Law School and Simon Wallace at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University. 

The study takes into account multiple opinions, internal divisions, law clerk contributions, an increasing number of interveners, and new research and writing tools. But it finds even unanimous rulings, which are at their lowest rate since 1975, have ballooned.

It describes an “institutional change” since Wagner took the helm of the Court eight years ago, noting that “the four most verbose modern justices are all Wagner-era appointees.”

Justice Nicholas Kasirer’s average solo opinion is 15,350 words, the study says. Former Justice Sheilah Martin wrote 13,728 words, Justice Mahmud Jamal reached 12,440, and Michelle O’Bonsawin filed 11,217. 

That compares with an average opinion length of 6,593 words under former chief justice Beverley McLachlin. 

“The court’s caseload has been cut in half,” Warchuk said in an interview. “Maybe they’re more willing to add in extra material.”

The tradeoff? 

“For a lawyer charging a client, it could be twice the cost to read the same set of judgments,” he says. “And for self-represented people, it presents a huge barrier.”

As Warchuk notes in an article focused on access to justice, research has shown that those representing themselves are less likely to finish or understand lengthy judgments because of the heavy cognitive burden they impose.

“The idea that they … make the court more approachable or accessible by the general public seems pretty wrongheaded or ironic,” he says, adding long-winded reasonings also muddy the waters of future interpretation.

‘Mammoth’ judgments

As someone who regularly reads top court rulings, Warchuk had noticed it was taking far longer. He used an AI large language model to quickly analyze word counts. 

Samples of generated results were double-checked to verify them. 

“Mammoth” judgments with multiple opinions reach 400 to 600 paragraphs.

Recent examples include Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia, which tested whether monetary damages can be claimed for the tort of intimate partner violence, and was more than 40,000 words long.

The 6-3 carbon tax decision in 2021, References re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, has 616 paragraphs, four sets of reasons, and tops 88,000 words. 

“It takes a lot of time not only to read these things but to write them too, so there’s concern,” Warchuk says. “I think a lot of people are feeling it and … are happy that it’s finally been put down in numbers.

“I’ve heard from judges in lower courts who are saying, ‘We’re seeing the same thing here.’”

Between 1980 and 2018, the median British Columbia trial decision more than tripled, while Quebec’s lower court decision length increased by about 40 per cent between 2003 and 2017.

And yet, landmark Charter cases and other major precedents required far fewer words, he says.

The seminal Persons case decision in 1929 by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Edwards v Canada (Attorney General), is about 14 pages. 

“If those judgments didn’t need to be this long, what justification is there for these judgments today being so long?”

An emailed response from the Supreme Court says it gives each case the resources and time required.

“In doing so, the Court also continually ensures that complex legal questions are addressed in an accessible manner. For example, a Case in Brief is released alongside every judgment, indeed regardless of its length, explaining the facts, legal issues and the court’s reasoning in clear, plain language.”

However, Warchuk says those summaries are no substitute for concise writing. 

A disclaimer cautions that Case in Brief recaps are prepared by staff and “do not form part of the court’s reasons for judgment and are not for use in legal proceedings.”

“Thus, litigants and counsel cannot rely on these summaries for the primary purposes for which they use Supreme Court judgments,” the study says.

‘Not just a few unusually long cases’

Jon Khan, a legal reform researcher and lawyer, is a recent PhD graduate from Osgoode Hall Law School. 

As part of his broader work on Canada's lack of deliberate legal system design, he surveyed 11 user groups who overwhelmingly said judgment lengths are a problem. 

Theories as to why include the possibility that trial judges write long to insulate themselves from appeal. In turn, appeal courts may be writing for the Supreme Court.

Researchers looking for clear answers, however, run into the same roadblock. 

“Canada has a massive legal data deficit and a parallel transparency deficit for the little data that exists,” Khan says in his dissertation.

Supersized judgments packed with competing reasons risk blurring the court’s majority positions, says Eugene Meehan, K.C., a partner at Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa. 

He was also former chief justice Antonio Lamer’s first executive legal officer.

“It’s not just a few unusually long cases,” Meehan says. 

“This can increase legal research costs and make it hard for even sophisticated readers to work with a decision. As always, it’s about balance.”

He wonders which target audience the judges most hope to reach: the public, lawyers, the winning or losing party, or perhaps other judges.

Different audiences have very different needs.

“Could "War and Peace" have been shorter? Sure,” he says. 

“Better to read in the original or as a Reader’s Digest condensed book? Depends on the reader, I guess.”