Erhan Bedestani was born in Hamilton Township, New Jersey. While attending Johns Hopkins University, Erhan earned an Army ROTC scholarship and embarked on a 21 year active duty Army career, with tours of duty to Iraq, Afghanistan, and West Africa. He retired in August 2023.
Erhan earned his law degree from the Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America in May 2023. He was a member of the editorial board for the Columbus School of Law, Journal of Law and Technology. He is also the 2023 Michael Curtin Pro Bono Award winner for dedication and commitment to Pro Bono service while a law student and was also recognized for the same by Washington D.C. Council of Lawyers during its 2021 Pro Bono week. He is presently a law clerk for a Circuit Court Judge in Montgomery County, Maryland. Erhan was recently selected for the Department of Justice Honors Attorney Program, where he will serve as an attorney advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals. He is admitted to the bar in Minnesota and North Dakota and a member of the Montgomery County, Maryland Bar Association.
Erhan is a 2009 Douglas MacArthur Leadership Society awardee, 2010 graduate of the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy and Omar Bradley Fellow, and a 2022 Pat Tillman Foundation Scholar. He is a lifelong member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), Special Forces Association, and Association of the United States Army (AUSA).
Erhan is the Executive Director of Warrior Family Advocacy (WFA), a non-profit he started in 2022 to conceptualize, define, and generate solutions to the problems Veteran and Service member parents face in family court with regards to custody arrangements. While in service and since retiring, Erhan continues to be motivated to help ease the pain and suffering so many Veterans and Service members have faced at the hands of a family court system they feel is predisposed to view them as unfit parents for no reason other than their service affiliation. Erhan’s passion project is to research and publish on this issue in an effort to create increased awareness and education on the topic. Erhan is above all else, the proud father to a fifteen year old son, with whom he moved a total of 4 times while in the Army, before settling down and retiring from active duty service to Arlington, Virginia.
