Justin Safayeni

2Hi Pulat, thank you for having me on. I'm a big fan of the show.

5I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. You'll have to ask others. I'd say, you know, in some areas I'm still emerging, maybe in some areas I've emerged. That is a strange term that you see a lot, this emerging litigator language, right?

7Correct. Yes.

9Bird's eye view. Well, I mean, one of the advantages of Stockwoods is you kind of get to try a lot of different areas of law, and I think kind of my career reflects that. But overall, I've mostly focused in media and defamation law as kind of one bucket of work, and that's something that I started at pretty early in my career at Stockwoods, defending defamation cases for the CBC and other defendants. Also administrative and public laws, another area Stockwoods has a considerable practice in, and I've been practicing in since I joined. And then kind of general civil and commercial litigation. And along the way, I've been lucky enough to, I think, You know, catch some lucky breaks.

10I think a lot of this profession is kind of things that land on your lap, cases or opportunities, and what you kind of make of them. And, you know, I've been lucky enough to get some of those along the way, including some interesting Aboriginal law cases, human rights cases, and constitutional law cases. I don't know if that's not enough of a bird's-eye view or too much of a bird's-eye view, but that's kind of, you know, how I think of my time at Stockwoods so far.

12It's something I've always been interested in. I actually kind of considered for my undergrad doing journalism school didn't ultimately go that route, but it was kind of down to either that or business school, and I picked the maybe more conservative but less interesting of the two options. So it's always been something I've been interested in. And when I was thinking about firms to join, I knew that Stockwoods had a defamation law practice and that CBC was kind of one of the clients, and, and defending journalists and journalist work product was kind of one of the areas that the firm had a bit of a name and a reputation in.

13And that's one of the things that drew me, drew me to the firm in the first place. So when I joined, I knew that was something that I wanted to try and get into. And I was lucky enough to to have some of those files across my desk, right? And I tell younger lawyers that, you know, if there is an area of practice at a firm that you're interested in, when you join the firm, make your interest in those areas known, right? And I think that's something I tried to do. I, I approached the, the, the partners that were kind of bringing in that type of work, and I expressed my interest in getting those files.

14And I think it aligns well with kind of one of my broader areas of interest, which is free expression more generally, right? I mean, I think defending journalists and the media is one aspect of that. I think it's a very important aspect of that. But it ties in more broadly with my interest in free expression issues. And so I've been lucky enough to be able to do some of that as part of my practice.

16Well, so my, my, my route to Stockwoods is a little bit circuitous. It didn't really go through the OCI process as much. I, I summered at a big firm which was a—

18Goodman's. Yeah.

20Right. Which was, which was, which was a great experience in a lot of ways. And then clerked for a year, and then through clerking I heard about Stockwoods. I had actually not even heard about Stockwoods, somewhat embarrassed to say, before that year. It wasn't because we don't really do OCIs or anything like that. We don't have a student program. So it was somewhat, you know, serendipitous for Stockwoods to come on my radar and then to find out that they did this kind of work. You know, as for my expression of free interest in free expression, I mean, I'm not really sure where it comes from. It's just, it's been a, you know, it's been an area that kind of academically I've been interested in a long time.

21I don't think anybody who is doing that as part of their practice is doing it to get rich. It's not a kind of big money area, but it is one You know, in your practice mix, you ideally try and get the type of work that keeps the lights on and the type of work that also engages some core principles that you feel strongly about. And the free expression stuff at least ticks one of those boxes. And it's— I do think it is important, and it's increasingly important when you have kind of— whether it's media organizations, traditional or otherwise, that are increasingly under attack— to be able to use the law to defend the free expression rights of those entities is is important.

22And defamation is not You know, as you know, is not kind of, it's not a direct kind of constitutional 2B issue, but it certainly flows from and is informed by those principles, right?

25Yeah, I mean, I think eclectic is a good it's a good descriptor for it. I, I'm not sure I can give you kind of the full history of it, but what I, what I do know is it was, it was, you know, it's founded by, by David Stockwood back in the late '70s, and it was originally founded as a kind of conflicts shop, right? The idea being that you know, David recognized, you know, people working— litigators specifically working at some of these larger firms would be conflicted out of files, often because of the corporate clients of those firms. And having a shop where they could send those conflicts and where the understanding would be, you know, the firm would serve those clients, but they wouldn't try and kind of keep those clients.

26They would understand that they might, you know, back for other purposes to the larger firms. There was a space for that in the Toronto market and so that was kind of its origin. And for a long time, Stockwoods has kind of had a criminal law seat, so to speak, right? That's kind of been part of the ethos of the firm is, you know, we can help with the civil side and the admin or regulatory side But you may also have a problem that, you know, lands you in, in with potential criminal exposure. And we have people here who could speak to that as well. And certainly as like, you know, a younger lawyer looking to join somewhere, that's relatively rare, right, to find a place where you could have that kind of breadth of exposure to different areas.

27So that was— that's something that I think makes Stockwoods unique and certainly makes it attractive to me and many others who have joined. The other piece of it is, you know, while the firm doesn't exclusively hire clerks, there's a— that, that's the main pool of people the firm hires from because they don't have, you know, we don't have an established articling or summer student program. So, you know, you'd mentioned OCIs earlier, that's not a pipeline for people to come in. So, so you're also getting people who, you know, for lack of a better term, are kind of law nerds or law geeks and who enjoy having discussions about kind of, you know arcane or strange legal issues.

28And, and having the perspective of, you know, mainly civil and mainly criminal litigators under the same roof, I think, is interesting, right? I mean, these lawyers kind of often have different litigation styles. They may see issues differently, but there is something to be gained from being able to have a kind of consistent exposure and learn sometimes through osmosis how, you know, a different category of litigator may see or approach a certain issue or situation, which you may not be able to get at other places where it's all people who've been kind of trained to see things through a, you know, civil lens or an admin law lens or only a criminal law lens.

29So it's an awesome place to work. I feel very grateful and lucky to have landed there, and it is a wonderful group of people.

31A law nerd's day at Stockwoods, I mean, it could look that people ask this, you know, sometimes during interviews, you know, what's, what would my, what could my day be like at Stockwoods? And, and it sounds like a bit of a cliché answer, but, you know, in my experience, it's absolutely true. It can be very, very different day to day, right? Especially as a more junior lawyer. You could be in a criminal set date court one morning, you could be in the Court of Appeal the next morning, you could be working on a Supreme Court of Canada intervention the morning after that. And you could be working on civil discoveries at the end of the week, right?

32And all of that kind of goes back to the breadth of work that the firm does. So I mean, there is no kind of typical day, but I think one of the things that, you know, you will find day to day at the firm is that people are very willing to talk about legal issues, right? I mean, again, it's a cliché that kind of the door is open and come in and talk to me, but I think one of the pieces of the firm's culture that I've really enjoyed is not only is the door open, but people are kind of happy to have the discussion often, right? Because they're interested genuinely in these weird legal issues.

33And so if you want to bounce an idea off someone or run a theory by someone or ask about, you know, does this rule apply, or how might you approach this issue, you you're dealing with a set of people who are not only smart but kind of genuinely curious and willing to talk issues through. And I think, you know, I've, I've certainly was the, the beneficiary of that in my younger years. I think I'm still the beneficiary of that, and you know, hopefully have passed some of that along as well.

35Sure. I mean, well, the single biggest change— I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but at, you know, at some point and this may have come very early for you because, you know, I think you're you've been kind of independent and running, running your, your shop for for a while now. But at some point you go from wearing the kind of the junior hat where, you know, your job is to think about the strategy of the case, but, but, you know, also to be very focused on the details, make sure all the T's are crossed, the I's are dotted be kind of the brain trust of the case, for lack of a better term.

36But ultimately, a lot of the strategic calls are made by somebody else. And at Stockwoods, that was, you know, done in close consultation with the junior lawyer. But often, you know, you ultimately don't really wear it the same way as a junior. So at some point you go from that to the roles being reversed, right? And all of a sudden not that you're not aware of the case, but you're, you know, if nothing else because of the financial structure and the hourly rates, you're not necessarily mired in the details the same way the junior is, but the strategic calls and the direction for how to ultimately to pursue a particular issue or particular matter is yours to wear, right?

37And that can be both exhilarating but also, you know, sometimes stressful or terrifying even, depending on the situation. And I'm not sure I can kind of pinpoint an exact moment when that happened, and it happens maybe in different times on different files depending on the ownership that you have over a matter, but that's That's a big change, right? And it's a big adjustment, I think, for lawyers to become comfortable not only kind of understanding the guts of a file, but also kind of owning ultimately the strategic decisions that are made. And I think, you know, that's the kind of stuff that keeps— well, maybe I won't speak for all lawyers— that keeps me at least sometimes up at night, right?

38Did I make the right call? Could I have done this differently? And I think those decisions maybe may weigh more heavily on you as you transition from that, you know, one role of being a second chair to kind of running the strategy and the files on your own. You know, there's been lots of kind of, you know, high points and low points, like I'm sure it is for everybody else, over the course of my time. But I think some of the real highlights have been being lucky enough to appear in the Supreme Court on a number of matters, including as— well, both successfully and unsuccessfully ultimately, but first successfully for the hamlet of Clyde River with Nader Hasan, who you mentioned earlier in a case where we were challenging a National Energy Board decision.

39That was certainly a highlight. And being able to participate in many kind of interventions in Supreme Court matters before and after that was something that I've been really grateful for that opportunity, even as a junior lawyer, to be able to kind of run those files and, you know, It's not sure that other firms would necessarily have been as generous with affording those kind of opportunities, but Stockwoods certainly did, and I'm, I'm very grateful for that.

41Not sure I have a playbook, but I, I think, you know, the one overarching thing to keep in mind— and, and this, you know, you learn this in different ways, but for me it kind of started even with clerking— is, you know, you got to think about how it's going to play to the decision maker. And, and this sounds so obvious that it's, you know, kind of trite to say, but it is an important kind of guiding North Star for all of those kinds of calls, right? How is this going to look in a motion record? How is this going to sound when I say it at an oral argument? How is it going to land with the person who's going to be charged with decision-making?

42That is often a different question and will lend itself to a different answer than what is technically right on the black and white law, or what does the client want to hear? Or, you know, what does the client— yeah, want me to say to make the client feel good, or to kind of show that we're sticking it to the other side? Those may point in the, in the same direction, but they may not, and they often don't. And so, you know, thinking strategically about how it is ultimately going to land is, I think, kind of the thing that you always have to keep in mind. And although it sounds simple, sometimes it can be there can be a lot of noise or other pressures that try and distract you from that.

44Sure. Well, I mean, the first thing is, in my experience, they're, they're sophisticated clients. And that's not to say commercial clients aren't sophisticated. They can be, but not all Not all clients are sophisticated. It, you know, when you're dealing with media organizations or journalists, you know, almost without exception in my experience, they are sophisticated. They are professionals. They know their craft. And in many ways, that's a gift for, for a lawyer, right? Because you're dealing with somebody who understands their job inside and out. And, you know, it, it, in a strange way, you know, lawyers and journalists, the job isn't in some ways very different, right? We're, we're kind of storytellers.

45There's kind of an obsession with the facts and, and research. And so journalists are often great to work with because they will understand what you are trying to do as a lawyer, and they will be very well-prepared. They will have, you know, notes and documents, and they will understand the chronology and the importance of being able to not only tell a story but tell a story that is factually defensible based on the record and the information that was available to them. So it's kind of a you know, a gift in many ways to have, you know, a good journalist as a defendant or a witness in a case because we're not speaking exactly the same language, but it's a closer fit in many ways than some other clients when it comes to them appreciating what we are trying to do and then being able to advance the ball towards the ultimate goal.

47So, I mean, things really changed in 2009 with the responsible communication defense. And just for those who not terribly familiar with this area. Defamation, you have the standard defenses that have gone back decades, if not centuries. The idea of truth—if something is true, it's not defamatory. Fair comment—even if it's not a matter of fact but a matter of comment that you're saying that's based on true facts, That's a defense. And then qualified privilege, which kind of protects certain occasions of communications. But in 2009, a fourth defense was added or recognized in Canadian common law, this defense of responsible communication, which is— without getting into the weeds, it's essentially a due diligence defense, right?

48It's, it's, it's saying maybe it's not true, but, you know, I did the best I could in terms of research, and so liability should, should not ultimately attach because of that. And so that is something you see a lot, at least in traditional media cases, less so when you're dealing with individual clients, non-media clients, obviously. But that's a defense that plays a major role in a lot of in a lot of defamation cases against traditional media alongside perhaps some of the other defenses, but it's it's a crucial one.

50That's a good question. No, from the, from the media's perspective it's rarely— it's rare that expert evidence will be adduced. It's usually the media just kind of saying there's a list of factors the Supreme Court has gone through, and it's it's a matter of kind of going through those factors and explaining how each of them apply in in in the particular case.

52I have not seen negligence claims on that basis, no, no. Often, you know, often the argument really comes down to, on the, on the due diligence defense, you know, the other side kind of saying, you know, look, you, you should have done more research, you should have reached out to this person, you perhaps you should have done more effort to contact the target of the story, the person who usually ends up suing, or that, you know, you kind of acted, ultimately acted kind of maliciously in terms of kind of targeting this person for particularly harsh treatment in your reporting. And so, you know, liability should attach and the defense doesn't apply. But I'm not aware of a negligence claim attaching, and I'm, I'm not sure that the duty of care in that respect would be made out.

54Not dispositive, but certainly central to it. So I'd say it's difficult to make out the responsible communication or due diligence defense if you haven't gone to the target of the story via the accused I guess in your lexicon, and, and given them a chance to comment, or at least made efforts to reach out to them. Now, if, you know, they're not reachable, or they refuse to comment, or they're dragging their feet, I mean, there's, you know, there's— it's not that you have to hold up publication forever in order to hear from them. But if you haven't even tried that's going to be very difficult to paint as due diligence. I will say, in my experience, that's quite rare.

55I mean, putting aside what advice you get from media lawyers for contentious stories, journalists themselves, their own kind of, you know, ethics and sense of what reporting requires will almost invariably reach out to who they are reporting on, right? It's not even outside the legal framework, it's kind of not good reporting to run a story on someone and not give them a chance to tell their side. So it is quite rare that you will see a situation where a journalist hasn't even tried to take that step. But to your point, Pulat, if, if they haven't done that it is very hard to make out the defense. If they have, it's not a slam dunk.

56There's other elements to consider as part of the defense, but it is, it is definitely a core component of it.

58For sure, for sure. Yes. And even harder, I mean, more so than that, this is kind of a bit of a digression. We don't have to go down this rabbit hole, but was the introduction of the anti-SLAPP legislation, right? More recently, I think in 2017, that really changed the game. This is the legislation that gives defendants in defamation actions the ability very early on, right, even prior to putting in a statement of defense, to go to court and say this is a, a SLAPP, which is an acronym for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. You bring a motion and, and each— and you— there's a bit of a convoluted test we can get into, but you bring this motion and you try and convince the court that this is the kind of action that ultimately in the public interest shouldn't be allowed to proceed.

59And that has really become a major preliminary hurdle for plaintiffs in many defamation suits. They're met with this kind of immediate motion where they have to kind of justify whether their action dies on the vine or whether it is allowed to proceed through the normal steps. So I do think responsible communication was one thing that made it harder, But really, in practical terms, this anti-SLAPP legislation has totally changed the game and the calculus for anyone who's considering bringing a defamation lawsuit in Ontario, at least.

61It's— no, it's not aware. It's not available only to media outlets. And in fact, the Supreme Court has been clear. This is an important point that you raise, that, you know, it's not called responsible reporting. It's responsible communication on matters of public interest. And technically, it could be available to anyone. Including you know, the basement blogger, the the office podcaster, who, whoever is trying to communicate matters out there can avail themselves of this defense. Now, as a practical matter, it's more likely, as you know, in my experience, to succeed when you're dealing with the media because the media are a bit more disciplined about their journalists following kind of particular steps and approaches that would fit better within that framework of a responsible communication and due diligence defense.

62But that doesn't mean that you know Joe Blow who's doing their own kind of basement blogging can't avail themselves the defense if they can convince a court that they've taken the responsible steps. And I think that's right. Right. I mean, the media in some ways is in a special position, but they shouldn't be kind of singled out as being the only beneficiaries of a common law defense. And our courts have been clear about that.

64Well, against media outlets, it's usually the people who are being reported on right? And it's one of these things where it, it's, it's ironic in, in a lot of cases because the very act of bringing a lawsuit or threatening a lawsuit even, can be counterproductive if what you're trying to do is make this issue get out of the spotlight. Because, you know, as you know, court proceedings themselves are all publicly filed. They are reportable events. And reporting on court proceedings as long as it's done kind of fairly and responsibly is protected. So that in itself can become events that get reported on that amplify the story rather than make it go away.

65But usually in, in the traditional cases against the media, it's the people who have been reported on who are bringing the litigation.

67Yeah, I mean, look, it is hard to say. And even outside of the media context, right? If it's A suing B and, you know, we've represented plaintiffs in that kind of context outside of the media setting, it's two private parties perhaps threatening or engaging in litigation over social media posts or over, you know, something that somebody wrote in an email or, or whatever even in that context, you know, you gotta think very carefully about whether it's going to achieve your objective, right? And, and people may have different objectives, right? Some people may have an objective that really rooted in principle and wanting a court to denounce what somebody else has done. They may have significant funds that allows them to pursue that objective, and they may not care if there are further events that are reportable along the way.

68But more often than not, at least in my experience, in a situation where there's a plaintiff who comes to you, or a potential plaintiff who comes to you and says, I'm angry about what such and such wrote about me and I want to bring a lawsuit against them. You know, I find myself often talking myself out of work in those initial calls, right? I mean, it's really not— you got to think very carefully about whether it is worth your time and energy to do this if your objective is just to have this go away and blow over rather than breathe more life into it. And when you couple that with the anti-SLAPP hurdle that I mentioned earlier, the calculus becomes, you know, even more so that a plaintiff or potential plaintiff has to think about their steps very carefully.

69You know, do you really want to immediately spend, you know, $50,000, $75,000, $100,000 battling an all-out anti-SLAPP motion when all you want is for this thing to go away? Or should we just take a breath and let it go away? It goes back to kind of another issue in litigation more generally, which is that often people are very hot to trot to start a claim, or, or they think they want to start a claim because they've been aggrieved, they've been wronged. That is something that they genuinely feel, and perhaps it is true, but whether litigation is the actual solution to that feeling is a different question, and one that I when we're wearing our advisor hats rather than our kind of warrior hats.

70Exactly right. You have to kind of maybe sometimes tell them, you know, it's not— it's— this may not be the right route for you.

72Oh my, you're making me like choose between my children.

74have to, you know, they, they, they can both be absolute They can both be absolutely amazing in the right, in the right case. I mean, the admin and public law stuff, especially if you put kind of constitutional law in that category, has, can have kind of broader implications that I think as lawyers, you know, most of us get very excited about. You know, Nader and I are working on a case right now where we're, you know, challenging Ontario's targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions. So far we've been unsuccessful, but that's under appeal under reserve. And that, you know, that's a kind of case that, you know, I love the defamation cases.

75They definitely have implications of their own that are important, and I don't want to minimize that. But, you know, when you get into some of those constitutional public law areas that you're dealing with kind of a different order of magnitude in terms of the potential impact, I think that, you know, that's the kind of stuff that you can get really excited about and potentially make a huge difference.

77Not, not exactly correct. We do sometimes act for we do sometimes act for regulatory bodies in terms of defending decisions. Yeah, we all— we only act for the, the good guys, Pulat, but sometimes

79challenger and sometimes that's the challenged decision

81Well, I mean, I, I I think the basic answer to that is yes, they're elected and that gives them a certain amount of legitimacy to make decisions, but there are guardrails on those powers, right? And the most obvious guardrail is the Constitution, including the Charter. And, you know, they're not elected in a way that allows them to violate the Charter. We'll put the notwithstanding clause controversy off to the side for the moment. But assuming that that's not kind of invoked and relied upon, those are the bounds of play, or at least they're kind of one important way of delineating the bounds of play. So, you know, I don't think it's an answer to say they're elected because they can, and then therefore they can do whatever.

82They want. I think part of the best traditions of the bar is holding the government to account and making sure it acts within those limits. When you get to the kind of the, the, the, the decision makers who are not kind of the government themselves exactly, but they are people who have been appointed by the government to tribunals, You know, the additional boundary is this reasonableness, sometimes correctness, but generally the reasonableness boundary that the Supreme Court has kind of established on the theory that, you know, whatever power has been delegated to them, it doesn't include the power to make unreasonable decisions, right? That, that was never what was contemplated. And so again, you're operating within making sure that they stay within the bounds of the authority they have.

83It's not about about attacking the fact that they have the authority, but properly delineating the scope of it,

85I mean, for sure it's an uphill battle in almost every case. I mean, the starting point is, you know, you're bearing the onus. So I mean, that's the first thing to recognize, right? You're— you are the one who has to show a decision is unreasonable or a regulation is unconstitutional or whatever you're trying to show. And, you know, you're quite right, there is— there are a set of kind of legal rules and presumptions that are designed to not always make that the easiest task, right? And so Part of the exercise, and maybe we'll take the administrative law, pure, more pure administrative law situation at least first. I mean, part of the exercise there is when you're assessing the case or having discussions with clients about whether a challenge is worth bringing, you know, somewhat like the defamation case, sometimes you find yourself talking yourself out of a brief because you have to, as an advisor, be real with the clients or the potential clients about the difficulties you are going to face and the fact that even if something isn't, you know, done right or correctly, that's not usually the lens that a reviewing court is going to put on it.

86And this is difficult because it's not intuitive, right? I mean, clients sometimes have a very difficult time swallowing this pill. You know, they said, well, it's not right, so why can't we go to court and fix it? You know, well, well, the answer is not— the question is not whether it's right. The question is whether it's reasonable. And all of the ink that's been spilled on what exactly that means. And, you know, built into reasonableness is certainly a degree of deference for the decision-making and the reasoning that a tribunal has employed, even if it's not the same conclusion that a court would reach if it was looking at a situation completely on its own.

87So that is something that clients have to understand, and it sometimes means that a judicial review application can be a bit of a long shot, but at the same time, particularly where a decision-maker hasn't done a good job explaining themselves or the reasons kind of truly admit of internal contradictions or failure to grapple with key arguments that were made before the tribunal, it can be the right case to push that forward. But that's not every case, and to your point, there are often you know, challenges you're going to have to overcome because the playing field is kind of tilted against you in, in those settings.

89This is another thing that is— that can be frustrating about doing that type of work, is that the success usually is it gets sent back. The Supreme Court has been very clear about this. There are exceptions that where a court will roll up its sleeves and make the call itself but that's really the exception, not the rule. And the traditional relief is that a decision is set aside and then it is remitted back to the same tribunal or decision maker to try again, right? And again, this is something that drives clients crazy, right? I mean, they say, well, how can I go through this whole process and win, and then the relief is simply that it goes back so they can try again and perhaps do the exact same thing but just cooperate come up with better reasons.

90And the reality is, you know, that is a risk that you are taking in a lot of these cases when you're seeking judicial review. Now, the hope is— and to your point, you know, what does success look like? The hope is that although it gets sent back, the reasoning of the court on a particular issue or set of issues is such that it makes it difficult for a tribunal to reach a result that goes against your client's interests, even when they're reconsidering or hearing the case again when it's sent back to them, right? So it's a bit of kind of using the reasons as a source of soft power, for lack of a better term.

91It's not directive in the way that, you know, the tribunal below must do this or must render this decision. But the court's reasoning on particular issues, whether they're interpretive or evidentiary, the commentary is such that the decision maker feels a lot of pressure to perhaps decide a case a certain way in light of what the court has said, and quite frankly, in light of of the risk of being re-reviewed and slapped down again. So in a lot of cases, that's kind of the best you can hope for. You will often ask the court to roll up its sleeves and make the decision itself, but that is an exceedingly rare outcome.

93I don't know if it's the most complicated area of law. It is certainly complicated. And I, you know, I think the Supreme Court tried to do some work towards simplifying it in Vavilov, and in some ways it did, but in many ways the complications persist and have even, in some areas at least, maybe multiplied. And It's also, it's just, it's not intuitive, right? A lot of areas of law, at least to some extent, you can rely on a basic intuition of how things work. You know, negligence or tort law, I mean, there are complications, but the general concepts kind of make sense. In admin law, it's not that the concepts don't make sense, but it is somewhat arbitrary, right?

94I mean, we 3 standards of review. Now we have 2 standards of review. And, you know, we had these categories of correctness. Now we have these categories of correctness. It is just kind of— not to say that it's without principles or rationales. I'm not suggesting that it's totally arbitrary, but it certainly doesn't line up easily with one's intuition about how a corner of the law can work. And I think that does make it challenging. And then there's just challenges with, with kind of putting your finger on what exactly this concept of reasonableness means, right? And, and already there's courts across the country even can't kind of speak with one voice on whether that standard has changed post-Vavilov or stayed the same.

95And that's got to tell you something, right? When you have these smart judges in different jurisdictions looking at this issue, and some of them are saying, you know, Vavilov kind of changed the game on reasonableness, others are suggesting it's really kind of stayed the same with no major changes. Doesn't make it easy to always tease the best way to frame your case or argue an issue when you have that kind of variability.

98I've not thought about it. I'm just trying to make it day by day, quite honestly, between work and the kids and everything else. But I do appreciate the opportunity to have been on here. Hopefully it'll involve one more appearance on your show, if nothing else.

101Thank you, Pulat. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.