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.

Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Canby earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 1953 on an ROTC scholarship, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.

[1] Canby was nominated by President Jimmy Carter on April 2, 1980, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated by Judge Ozell Miller Trask.

On February 4, 2017, Canby and Judge Michelle T. Friedland rejected[2] the Trump administration's request for an administrative stay[3] pending the Ninth Circuit's review of an emergency motion to stay the district court's temporary restraining order in State of Washington v. Trump, part of the ongoing court cases related to Executive Order 13769.