Peter Ehrhardt

Peter Ehrhardt graduated from the University of Minnesota law school in 1980. He moved to Alaska that same year and began working for a small personal injury firm in Bethel, Alaska. In 1983, Mr. Ehrhardt moved to Sitka, Alaska and worked for a small general practice firm there. In 1984 Mr. Ehrhardt moved to Kenai, Alaska where he resides today.

For the past ten years Mr. Ehrhardt’s practice has consisted chiefly of major civil litigation. He was co-counsel in In Re: Glacier Bay, a class action arising out of a 1987 oil spill in upper Cook Inlet which resulted in a $51 million settlement. He was co-counsel in In re: Sitka Pulp Mill, another class action involving the pollution of Sitka Sound. Mr. Ehrhardt was a member of the plaintiffs’ trial team which obtained a $5 billion verdict in the In Re Exxon Valdez litigation. For his work on that case, Mr. Ehrhardt, as a member of the trial team, received the 1995 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award from the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, a national organization of trial lawyers.

More recently, Mr. Ehrhardt has been involved in major consumer-oriented litigation against large corporations and insurance companies. For example, in 1999, Mr. Ehrhardt and Rick Friedman of Friedman Rubin and White obtained a $153 million verdict against State Farm Insurance in a case involving the wrongful termination of an agent.