J. Russell Leech was born in
Ebensburg, Pennsylvania. He attended the
Mercersburg Academy, in
Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. He graduated from
Washington & Jefferson College in
Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1911, and from the
law department of the
University of Pennsylvania at
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania in 1915. He was admitted to the bar in 1915 and commenced
practice in Ebensburg. During the
First World War, he was appointed as a
second lieutenant and served with the Seventh Ammunition Train. Leech was elected as a Republican to the
Seventieth,
Seventy-first, and
Seventy-second Congresses and served until his resignation on January 29, 1932, having been appointed a member of the United States Board of Tax Appeals (now the
United States Tax Court) to fill a vacancy. He was reappointed in 1934 and again in 1946, and served on this court until his death in
Chevy Chase, Maryland. Interment in Lloyd Cemetery in Ebensburg. ==References==