Justice Preston is the Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales. Prior to being appointed in November 2005, he was a senior counsel practising primarily in New South Wales in environmental, planning, administrative and property law. He has lectured in post-graduate environmental law for over 30 years. He is the author of Australia’s first book on environmental litigation and 139 articles, book chapters and reviews on environmental law, administrative and criminal law. He holds numerous editorial positions in environmental law publications and has been involved in a number of international environmental consultancies and capacity-building programs, including for judiciaries throughout Asia, Africa and the European Union.

Justice Preston is an Official Member of the Judicial Commission of NSW, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW and Honorary Fellow of the Environment Institute of the Australia and New Zealand. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by Macquarie University in 2018. He is a member of various international environmental law committees and advisory boards, including the interim governing council of the Global Judicial Institute on the Environment and Chair of the Environmental Law Committee of the Law Association for Asia and the Pacific (LAWASIA). He is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Sydney, Western Sydney University and Southern Cross University.

In 2019 Justice Preston was a Visiting Fellow at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, and in 2020 was the Robert S Campbell Jr Visiting Fellow at Magdalen College, University of Oxford.