Preston Byrne, Legal Fellow

Preston Byrne is a dual-qualified U.S. and English lawyer, partner with the digital commerce group in the Washington, D.C. office of the international law firm Brown Rudnick LLP, and an adjunct professor of law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. Preston advises the ASI on legal aspects of its policy proposals and writes on a range of subjects including housing and planning law, the security state, freedom of expression and cryptocurrency.

Preston often contributes to or is quoted by mainstream news media on a range of technology policy topics. In 2013, he was the lead author of Burning Down the House, the ASI’s paper opposing the Conservatives’ Help to Buy mortgage subsidy programme, which was covered by hundreds of national and international media outlets including Forbes, the Financial Times, City A.M., Reuters, the Telegraph, the New Statesman, Sky News, Deutsche Welle, and the BBC. More recently, in 2020, he wrote Sense and Sensitivity: Restoring Free Speech in the United Kingdom, a proposal for the repeal of numerous censorial laws in the United Kingdom.

Preston received an MA (Hons) from the University of St Andrews, an LL.B. in English law from the College of Law of England and Wales, and an LL.M. in U.S. law from the University of Connecticut Law School.