Sallyanne Payton is an American lawyer. She is the William W. Cook Professor Emerita of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. She was Stanford Law School's first African-American graduate.

Payton was born and raised in Los Angeles, California,^[1] to an insurance underwriter and schoolteacher.^[2] She earned her law degree from Stanford Law School in 1968, becoming their first African-American graduate.^[3] During her time at Stanford, Payton served as an editor of the Stanford Law Review.^[4]

With her newly obtained law degree, Payton was hired at the law firm Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.^[5] While there, she caught the attention of President Richard Nixon who hired her to sit on the White House Domestic Council staff in 1971.^[6] Her alma mater Stanford also elected her as an alumni-elect on their Board of Trustees.^[7] Payton was later appointed to Chief Counsel of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation in 1973.^[5]

In 1976, Payton and Christina B. Whitman were hired full-time at the University of Michigan Law School.^[8] The following year, she was elected to Stanford's Board of Trustees for a five-year term.^[9] During the Clinton presidency, she served as an adviser for the Clinton Health Care Reform Task Force, which led to her election as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.^[5]

On May 28, 2008, Payton was reappointed the William W. Cook Professor of Law until May 31, 2013.^[10] Two years later, she was elected to the National Academy of Social Insurance^[11] and a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States.^[12] In 2013, Payton officially retired from the University of Michigan Law School.^[5]