Richard Brevard Russell Sr. (April 27, 1861 – December 3, 1938) was an American lawyer, legislator, jurist, and candidate for political office.

While at UGA he was a member of the school's Supreme Court and the Phi Kappa Literary Society, of which he served as president in the spring of 1879.

Their oldest son, Richard Russell Jr., was a governor of Georgia and a long-serving and powerful member of the United States Senate.

Their second son, Robert Lee Russell, served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

When Russell's son, Governor Richard B. Russell Jr, signed the State Reorganization Act into law on August 28, 1931, and founded the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, the Governor appointed his father to be on the first board of regents of the University System of Georgia, organized on January 1, 1932.

He held a number of offices in the groups; provided legal services for them, and was frequently elected as a delegate to their conventions where he'd take Ina and one or more of his children with him on these expenses-paid trips.