William C. Canby, Jr.

Who is William C. Canby, Jr.?

William Cameron Canby, Jr. is a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sitting in Phoenix, Arizona. He was born on May 22, 1931, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Canby earned his undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1953 on an ROTC scholarship, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He then earned an LL.B. from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1956, graduating Order of the Coif before clerking for Associate Justice Charles Evans Whittaker on the United States Supreme Court. As both a professor at Arizona State University College of Law and a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Canby has become known as an expert in American Indian Law. He has authored law review articles, a major textbook, and the West Nutshell Series primer on the subject. While still a professor at ASU, Canby successfully argued the case of Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, in which the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment allows lawyers to advertise in a manner that is not misleading to members of the general public.