Richard joined the HIV Legal Network staff in January 1999 as Director of Policy and Research, following an 18-month term on its board of directors. He became Deputy Director in 2005 and Executive Director in 2007, serving in that role until 2021. Richard now works as a consultant, focusing on HIV, health and human rights, including for the Legal Network, UNAIDS, the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and other organizations.
Before joining the Legal Network staff, he worked as a civil litigator in private practice. He has appeared before all levels of Ontario courts and the Supreme Court of Canada. He has testified before legislative committees, served as an expert resource and technical advisor to UN agencies, taught or delivered guest lectures at several law schools, and presented extensively on HIV and human rights across the country and internationally.
Richard served on the boards of directors of the HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO) and the Prisoners’ HIV/AIDS Support Action Network (PASAN), and co-founded and chaired a local Amnesty International group in Toronto advocating for the rights of sexual minorities and people living with HIV. He was a founding member of the Global Treatment Access Group (GTAG), an affiliation of Canadian civil society organizations advocating for access to medicines in developing countries.
Between 2001 and 2007, Richard was a member of the Ministerial Council on HIV/AIDS, the advisory body to Canada’s Minister of Health. In 2010–2011, he served as a member of the Technical Advisory Group of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, and in 2015-16, as a member of the Expert Advisory Group to the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines.
On behalf of the HIV Legal Network, he served as secretariat to the UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights for several years. He is currently the Chair of the Supervisory Board of the HIV Justice Network, and a member of the International Advisory Committee of the International Centre for Human Rights and Drug Policy.
In 2012, he received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his contributions to the advancement of human rights related to HIV, and in 2017 he received the Social Justice in HIV/AIDS Award from the Ontario AIDS Network.
Richard holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Philosophy from Queen’s University, and both a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B., 1995) and Master of Laws (LL.M., 2006) from Osgoode Hall Law School (York University). He was called to the bar of Ontario in 1997.