Global Symposium on Racing Speaker: Richard Erhard
Richard Erhard is Principal | Founder of the consulting firm, Richard Erhard and Associates, LLC, providing dispute resolution consultation, meeting facilitation, training and coaching. Mr. Erhard is a highly trained mediator as well as a Section 504 Hearing Officer. He is a frequent speaker at local, regional and national conferences on the topic of dispute resolution and his clients include public and private agencies, private parties and non-profit agencies predominately in California and New Mexico.
Mr. Erhard is an Associate member of the American Bar Association Section on Dispute Resolution and served on the board of directors of the Southern California Mediation Association (SCMA) for six (6) years, 2017 - 2023. In 2022, Mr. Erhard assumed the Presidency of the SCMA and following his term of office, currently enjoys Past President status and is a sustaining member of this organization.
In addition to his private dispute resolution practice and membership on multiple non-profit Boards, Mr. Erhard served as the Executive Director of the New Mexico Horsemen’s Association (NMHA) from 2019 – 2022, where he facilitated a 2.5 million dollar settlement agreement to keep horseracing open in New Mexico during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Erhard was invited to join the faculty of the University of Southern California (USC) Gould School of Law, Center for Conflict Resolution in 2019, where USC requested he design and create the curriculum for a new course offering, Special Education Dispute Resolution. During his tenure at USC, Mr. Erhard taught: Mediation Theory and Practice, Directed Research and Special Education Dispute Resolution.
In January, 2023, Mr. Erhard was inducted into the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals (NADN) and in May, 2026, Mr. Erhard was admitted to the American Arbitration Association (AAA) | International Centre for Dispute Resolution’s exclusive mediation panel focusing on Early Dispute Resolution (EDR).