Brian J. Preston FRSN SC (born June 10, 1958) is the Chief Judge of the

Land and Environment Court of New South Wales The Land and Environment Court of New South Wales is a court within the Australian court hierarchy established pursuant to the to hear environmental, development, building and planning disputes. The Court’s jurisdiction, confined to the state ...

. He was appointed on 14 November 2005.http://www.lec.justice.nsw.gov.au/lec/judicial_officers.html , NSW government website, "Judicial officers and decision makers", accessed 5 November 2014.

Career

Preston graduated from

Macquarie University Macquarie University ( ) is a public research university based in Sydney, Australia, in the suburb of Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of S ...

in 1982. He practised as a

solicitor A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...

from 1982 to 1987, and as a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

from 1987 to 2005. He began his career at Stephen Jaques & Stephen, in the firm's resources group, then became associate to Mr Justice O’Leary of the

Supreme Court of the Northern Territory The Supreme Court of the Northern Territory is the superior court for the Australian Territory of the Northern Territory. It has unlimited jurisdiction within the territory in civil matters, and hears the most serious criminal matters. It is aro ...

. Preston was Principal Solicitor at the NSW Environmental Defender's Office from March 1985, overseeing its official opening in May that year. Appointed a Senior Counsel (SC) by the NSW Bar Association in 1999. He received in 2010 an award from the Asian Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Network (AECEN) for his environmental work.Trevor Daya-Winterbottom, Profiling Justice Brian Preston (Environmental Law Annual Colloquium (

University of Waikato The University of Waikato ( mi, Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato), is a Public university, public research university in Hamilton, New Zealand, Hamilton, New Zealand established in 1964. An additional campus is located in Tauranga. The university perfo ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

). In February 2018 the then Governor of New South Wales, General

David Hurley General David John Hurley, (born 26 August 1953) is an Australian former senior officer in the Australian Army who has served as the 27th governor-general of Australia since 1 July 2019. He was previously the 38th governor of New South Wales ...

AC DSC(Rtd) promulgated the election of Brian Preston as a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW (FRSN - Est 1821, Act of Parliament 1888 for the advancement of Science, Philosophy, Literature and the Arts) in the NSW Government Gazette.

References

People educated at Knox Grammar School 1958 births Living people 20th-century Australian judges {{australia-law-bio-stub