Philip Slayton

Mr. Slayton, who divides his time between Toronto and Nova Scotia, studied law at  Oxford University as a Manitoba Rhodes Scholar and later clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa. He taught at McGill University and was Dean of Law at the University of Western Ontario. He then practised corporate law in Toronto with Blake, Cassels & Graydon from 1983 until his retirement in 2000.

 

Slayton is the author of Lawyers Gone Bad: Money, Sex and Madness in Canada’s Legal Profession , published in hard cover by Viking Press  in 2007, in paperback by Penguin Group in 2008, and as an eBook in 2010. The book was not popular with lawyers or with the Canadian Bar Association. He was featured in a Maclean’s magazine cover story with the headline “Lawyers are Rats” and the Toronto Star labeled him “Public Enemy #1.” Maclean's noted that his interview "stirred up a great deal of controversy, including condemnation from the Canadian Bar Association, which criticized the article for "tarnish[ing] the reputation of thousands of professionals. Editorials in the National Post panned the book and criticized the Maclean's decision to feature it. 

 

Slayton’s second book, Mighty Judgment: How the Supreme Court of Canada Runs Your Life , was published in hard cover and as an eBook in 2011 by Allen Lane, and as a paperback by Penguin in 2012.

 

In 2013 Philip independently published Bay Street: A Novel , a legal thriller. The Toronto Star described Bay Street as “expert and engaging... exciting and hilarious... a first rate crime novel...”

 Mayors Gone Bad was published in hard cover and as an ebook by Viking in May of 2015; it explores municipal government and issues with the leadership provided by mayors in the Canadian system. 

 

How To Be Good: The Struggle Between Law and Ethics (with Patricia Chisholm), a collection of essays first published in  Canadian Lawyer magazine, was published in 2017.

 

The Future of Tennis (with Peter Figura) was published in 2018 by Skyhorse Publications/Simon and Schuster of New York.

 

Philip’s latest book, Nothing Left to Lose ,assessing the state of freedom in Canada, was published by Sutherland House in spring 2020.

 

Slayton is also a regular contributor on law-related topics to Canadian magazines and newspapers. In 2008, and again in 2010, he was awarded a Kenneth R. Wilson Memorial Award by the Canadian Business Press for his legal ethics column in Canadian Lawyer Magazine.

.

Slayton has received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and has served as President of the Canadian Rhodes Scholars Foundation and as Governor of Sheridan College. In 1998, Oxford University named him a “Distinguished Friend” of the university. Philip is a member of the Quadrangle Society of Massey College, Toronto, and is a past president of PEN Canada.