Sometimes a writer can do everything right and still get it wrong. While Philip Slayton’s new book, Lawyers Gone Bad: Money, Sex and Madness in Canada’s Legal Profession, is not defective from a technical standpoint, from a literary point of view, I must object!

Slayton, who was Dean of Law at the University of Western Ontario before turning to practise law as partner in one of Canada’s oldest and largest law firms, is unable to transform his personal interest in crooked lawyers into a work with wider appeal. Born from a series of articles written for Canadian Lawyer magazine, Lawyers Gone Bad reflects its roots in a piecemeal approach that is scholarly rather than scintillating; prudent rather than passionate.

What is puzzling about the book is that Slayton knows exactly what appeal his subject matter holds for the non-professional. He writes in the introduction that, “Stories of lawyers gone bad — even when the facts are complex, technical and dry — have a macabre interest. Stories of dishonesty and crime in general are always seductive, but the descent of the dishonest lawyer, from power and probity to vulnerability and shame is particularly compelling.”

Instead of allowing the reader to delight in the misfortunes of his fallen brethren, Slayton discusses the disgraced lawyers’ dirty deeds in decidedly diplomatic language. One gets the impression that his training as a lawyer has left Slayton incapable of passing judgment on the people he’s profiling, except in the cases of the most egregious offenders.

From the Thunder Bay district attorney who becomes a suspect in the murder of an underage prostitute to the Winnipeg immigration lawyer who hires a member of a motorcycle gang to beat up a difficult client, Lawyers Gone Bad is replete with unsavoury characters portrayed by Slayton in a sympathetic light. While this approach adds to our understanding of the many ways that the law can be twisted or fail, it also points to the fact that this book was written more for members of the legal community than for the general public.

The book’s narrow appeal is both its weakness and its strength. Anyone interested in the state of our legal system will find Slayton a fascinating analyst of the important, substantive issues facing the legal profession and a strong advocate for systemic improvements. While issues such as access to justice and the self-regulation of the legal community are important and of concern to all Canadians, it’s those who study law professionally who will take the most from this book. For better or worse, Lawyers Gone Bad is an academic screed masquerading as mass-market non-fiction.