Philip Slayton is a Canadian lawyer, academic, and author. He has published several books about law in Canada, including Lawyers Gone Bad: Money, Sex and Madness in Canada’s Legal Profession.
Born in England, Slayton's family emigrated to Canada when he was a child. Slayton studied law at Oxford University as a Manitoba Rhodes Scholar,[1] 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.[2] He practiced 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,[3] in paperback by Penguin Group in 2008, and as an eBook in 2010. The book was not popular with lawyers[4] or with the Canadian Bar Association.[5] He was featured in a Maclean’s magazine cover story with the headline “Lawyers are Rats”,[6] and the Toronto Star labeled him “Public Enemy #1”.[7] 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."[8] Editorials in the National Post panned the book and criticized the Maclean's decision to feature it.[9]
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.
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 the City of Toronto Legacy Project Committee, and is president of PEN Canada.
In 2014, Slayton released Bay Street, a mystery novel set in the offices of a large fictional Toronto law firm.[10]
In 2015, Slayton released Mayors Gone Bad, exploring municipal government and issues with leadership provided by mayors in the Canadian system.[11]
In 2020, Slayton released Nothing Left to Lose: An Impolite Report On the State of Freedom in Canada, published by Sutherland House.[12]
Slayton is married to the writer Cynthia Wine. Together they are the founders of the Port Medway Readers' Festival,[13] a summer literary festival on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. Philip and his daughter Gabrielle created a popular YouTube film review segment called “Gab & Dad”, in which they and guests regularly review new releases.