by Mana Khami (From the October Issue of Nexus, Western Law’s Student Newspaper)

The author of a book on the legal profession says that he has some regrets about the controversy that has erupted since its publication.

Philip Slayton, who spoke to Nexus from his downtown Toronto penthouse said that while it is not true that he painted all lawyers with the same brush, his book could have been more balanced. “What I should have done and [what] I would do if I were to re-write it, is to make it clear that the legal profession is a very diverse profession, the Former Dean of Western Law said. “Some of the things I say do not apply across the board. I did not make that clear. I regret it.”

Slayton’s book “Lawyers Gone Bad” and his interview with Maclean’s magazine, which went by the title of “Lawyers Are Rats” has touched off a firestorm in the legal community, and has been condemned by numerous organisations, from the Canadian Bar Association to the Ontario Bar Association.

Slayton said that he chose the title of the book himself and that he will take responsibility for it “I could change [the title] to “Some Lawyers Who Go a Little Bad Sometimes”. I admit there is a tinge of sensationalism about it. The worst thing that can happen to a writer is to write a book and no one knows you did it,” he said.

Slayton said that he thought that some of the criticism of the book has not been fair.“I think a lot of people decided based on just the cover that it is a bad thing and they don’t want anything to do with it. And I regret that. And I regret even more that a lot of lawyers have criticized the book when they have clearly not read it… One would hope that well-educated people would not just judge a book by its cover,” he said.

Slayton added that while he is fine with the content of his interview with Maclean’s, he would not have called the article “Lawyers are Rats.” “It is the cover that drove everybody crazy. I had nothing to do with the cover. In fact the first time I saw it was when I walked into the newsstand. … I think that there was an incredible overreaction to it”.

Slayton’s comments on the current state of the legal education have also been subject to much criticism. Western Law’s Dean Ian Holloway for instance has said that Slayton’s critique of law schools are outdated and that much has changed since Slayton was dean of Western 25 years ago. Slayton, when informed that Western Law now offers an ethics course as well as numerous community projects said that they did not change his views on legal education.

“What I say about legal education is that basically legal education largely is value free and trains you to serve the rich establishments … and that is again a generalization. I think it is important to look carefully at what I say”. He then went on to say that it is important that students are helping the community but that he wants more of the lawyers in the downtown Toronto high-rises to do pro-bono work.

Overall, Slayton says that he was taken aback by the fiercest of the criticism against him. His own friends in the legal profession, he assured me, attended the official book launch and seem to be fine with the book. Slayton is currently doing pro-bono work in South Africa and is working on another book, which he says, “the legal profession will be pleased to know that it has nothing to do with the legal profession”.