Before joining the UVA Library, Brandon was the Practitioner-in-Residence at the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic at the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C., where he supervised clinic student attorneys who represented clients in a variety of IP matters. He also taught traditional law courses, including Copyright and Fair Use in Practice.
Before teaching at the law school, Butler was the Director of Public Policy Initiatives at the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), an association of 125 academic and research libraries in North America. After graduating from law school, Butler was an associate in the Media and Information Technologies practice group at the Washington, D.C., law firm Dow Lohnes PLLC (now Cooley LLP). He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law where he was an editor at the Journal of Law and Politics, obtained an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Texas, and did his undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia.