Brian Preston

The Honourable Justice Brian Preston FRSN SC
5th Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court (NSW)
Incumbent
Assumed office 14 November 2005
Personal details
Born	(1958-06-10) 10 June 1958 (age 66)
Nationality	Australian
Education	Macquarie University
Occupation	Judge, Lawyer

Brian J. Preston (born June 10, 1958) is the Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales. He was appointed on 14 November 2005.^[1]

Career

Preston graduated from Macquarie University in 1982. He practised as a solicitor from 1982 to 1987, and as a barrister from 1987 to 2005.^[1]

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.^[2]

Preston was Principal Solicitor at the NSW Environmental Defender's Office from March 1985, overseeing its official opening in May that year.^[3]

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.^[4]

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

In 2018 he received an honorary Doctor of Letters from his alma mater Macquarie University and in 2022 an honorary Doctor of Laws from Western Sydney University. Justice Preston is also an adjunct professor at the University of Sydney, and Southern Cross and Western Sydney Universities. He was awarded the Medal of Honor by the World Jurist Association in 2023.^[5]

References

1. http://www.lec.justice.nsw.gov.au/lec/judicial_officers.html Archived 6 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine, NSW government website, "Judicial officers and decision makers", accessed 5 November 2014.
2. The Hon Brian Preston Chief Judge, Land and Environment Court.
3. Robinson, David (1996) "The Environmental Defender's Office NSW, 1985-1995" in Environmental and Planning Law Journal [June 1996] - "edo.org" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 April 2012. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
4. Trevor Daya-Winterbottom, Profiling Justice Brian Preston (Environmental Law Annual Colloquium, University of Waikato, New Zealand).
5. "Un congreso en la ONU por la defensa del Estado de Derecho". Diario ABC (in Spanish). 13 April 2023. Retrieved 12 June 2023.

 

 

Legal offices
Preceded by Peter McClellan	Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court (NSW) 2005–	Incumbent