David R. Burton focused on securities law, capital markets, entrepreneurship, financial privacy, tax matters, and regulatory and administrative law issues as The Heritage Foundation’s Senior Research Fellow in economic policy. In 2022, he was awarded Heritage's Drs. W. Glenn and Rita Ricardo Campbell Award, which goes to the employee who makes “an outstanding contribution to the analysis and promotion of a free society.”

Burton was general counsel at the National Small Business Association for two years before joining Heritage’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies in 2013. He was previously Chief Financial Officer and general counsel of the start-up Alliance for Retirement Prosperity, a conservative alternative to AARP.

For 15 years, Burton was a partner in the Argus Group, a Virginia-based law, public policy and government relations firm.  His career in financial and tax matters also includes the posts of vice president for finance and general counsel of New England Machinery, a multinational manufacturer of packaging equipment and testing instruments, and manager of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Tax Policy Center.

Burton received a juris doctor degree from the University of Maryland School of Law. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago.