Richard J. Leon

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Richard J. Leon (1949-) is a judge on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 2002 to the present.

Leon was born in 1949 in South Natick, Massachusetts and graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1971 and Suffolk University Law School in 1974 and Harvard Law School in 1981.

Leon served as a law clerk to the chief justice and associate justices of the Superior Court of Massachusetts from 1974 to 1975. He then served as a Law clerk to Thomas F. Kelleher, of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, 1975 to 1976. Leon was an attorney for the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1976 to 1977 and a special assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1977 to 1978. Leon was an assistant professor of law, St. John's University School of Law from 1979 to 1983 and then became a senior trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice from 1983 to 1987. Leon served as deputy chief minority counsel on the Select 'Iran-Contra' Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 to 1988. In 1988 Leon was appointed deputy assistant U.S. attorney general, serving from 1988 to 1989. In 1989 Leon was in private practice in Washington, DC until 2002. Leon was also a Commissioner on White House Fellows Commission from 1990 to 1993. He was appointed chief minority counsel on the 'October Surprise' Task Force of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1992 to 1993. Leon served as special counsel to the 'Whitewater Investigation,' on Banking, Finance & Urban Affairs Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994. He was also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University School of Law from 1997 to the present.

Leon was nominated to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by George W. Bush on September 10, 2001, to a seat vacated by Norma Holloway Johnson. He was confirmed by the Senate on February 14, 2002, and received commission on February 19, 2002.

Judge Leon held in March 2007 that disabled persons have no right to the same access to Federal buildings as that provided to persons without disabilities, contrary to over 30 years of Federal disability law.