Professional Background
I'm an attorney and counselor at law admitted to practice in all California courts and in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. My California Bar number is 174014. I'm proud to say I run an ethical practice and have always been in good standing with the State Bar of California; you can check my discipline record here.
I've been in private practice since being admitted to the Bar and opening my law office in 1994. My practice is based in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, California. My practice is primarily litigation-based with strong emphasis in criminal defense, police misconduct and excessive force litigation, and personal injury and business litigation. In addition, I mediate litigated cases. For the convenience of my clients, I also serve as a California notary public. To learn more about my practice areas, click here.
While attending evening courses at Southwestern University School of Law, I held employment and externships that exposed me to a broad spectrum of legal knowledge and experience. Southwestern built upon the strong foundation I laid during my undergraduate Criminal Justice and Business Administration studies at the California State University, Los Angeles.
During my first year at Southwestern, I worked full-time as a Probation Violation Law Clerk with what is said to be "the world's largest law firm" - the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. I worked with criminal prosecutors and police officers to save the People of the State of California money by sending probation violators to jail without the need for expensive trials (for your information, we did this by means of inexpensive but Constitutionally sound probation violation hearings). It was an interesting job that exposed me to the inner workings and realities of the criminal justice system.
While still attending evening classes at Southwestern, I left the District Attorney's Office and joined a specialized judicial research and support team, the Los Angeles County Superior Court (then Municipal Court) Planning and Research Unit. As a PRU Legal Research Assistant, I delved into issues of civil and criminal law and procedure for Los Angeles County Municipal Court judges and others who subscribed to the PRU's services and publications. I conducted short and long-term legal research, prepared legal memoranda for judges and staff attorneys, analyzed new legislation and helped prepare the PRU’s annual Legislative Report for publication. In short, my time at the PRU made me very good at quickly finding reliable answers to a range of legal questions.
Southwestern's curriculum also offered me the opportunity to participate in two clinical externships. The first was as a California Bar Certified Law Clerk. I was assigned to my old employer - the LADA's Office - this time at the Kenyon Juvenile Justice Center in South Central Los Angeles immediately after the 1992 LA Riots. This was a particularly important rotation for me because it opened my eyes to a world I had never experienced first hand - one of burned-out inner city neighborhoods home to a lot of good people who were being terrorized by hard, sometimes brutal children. It was my job to represent the People in numerous arraignments, plea agreements, witness and victim interviews, and the like. I tried 14 cases while under the detached supervision of a DA and won them all. According to Kenyon's Deputy-in-Charge, I did exceedingly well. Still, the experience left me with the realization that the juvenile justice system was badly flawed. I also realized I was hooked on lawyering.
My final law school externship - also as a California Bar Certified Law Clerk - was with the Office of the City Attorney, in Glendale, California, the city where I now practice. There I gained civil litigation experience through drafting pleadings and motions, watching trial and appellate lawyers in action and learning to tread carefully in what Van Alstyne's has called the "mine field" of government claims law. The highpoint of this externship was serving as a mediator and hearing officer in neighbor dispute and city code cases; when it comes to learning how to create win-win situations, there's no substitute for working hands-on with people in a dispute resolution setting. Even now, more than a decade after my work with the City Attorney's Office, my tour there continues to pay dividends.
In my pre-law school days, I served as Executive Director of the Armenian Relief Society's Glendale, California-based Earthquake Relief Fund for Armenia. I established and managed the ERFA’s offices, implemented the Executive Council’s policies and directives, coordinated with other charities, researched donation and grant sources, conducted media relations, supervised staff and volunteers and, of course, solicited funds. Working with the ERFA was a blessing in that I could do good while developing specialized and valuable skills and abilities; many of my ERFA relationships are still alive today.
Segueing into my personal life but still on professional ground, one of the most influential times in my life - certainly important in motivating me to become a lawyer - was the summer of 1987. I worked as an intern lobbyist, researcher and analyst for the Armenian National Committee of America in Washington, DC. Part of my work involved researching grant sources for humanitarian projects while on temporary assignment with the Armenian Relief Society. To me, however, the most meaningful part of this internship was my work interacting with Members of Congress and developing legislative and constituent support for human rights legislation concerning recognition of the genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks - one of the most terrible but downplayed events in modern history. HJ Res. 132 was - and its successor legislation remains - strongly opposed by today's Republic of Turkey. Still, just-minded people across America and the world, working with the ANCA and other organizations like the Armenian Assembly of America, continue to strive against Turkey's campaign of historical revisionism - its efforts to deny that the Armenian Genocide ever occurred.
A Little About My Personal Life...
I was born in Hollywood, California on August 3, 1964 to Ararat ("Art") and Anya Babachanian. I grew up in the LA suburbs of Montebello and Whittier and received my primary education from Mesrobian Armenian School, a parochial school administered by the Western Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church; I'm a member of the Class of 1982.
At Mesrobian I met most of my dearest friends and even after 30 years in several cases, my buddies and I remain extremely close; I was Best Man to two of them and Godfather to the children of one. My own Best Man attended Mesrobian and another of my pals went on to become our Alma Mater's principal. To say we're a close community is an understatement.
You've by now concluded that my folks were ethnic Armenians. In fact, they were immigrants from the then-Soviet Union, Art from Armenia and Anya an Armenian from the Ukraine. Their stories of the tribulations they endured at the hands of the communists and the fascists (circa WWII) helped to form my character as a person who dearly values and is willing to fight for traditional ideals like justice and fair play. My being a lawyer is in no small part related to lessons taught by these two people who sailed into New York Harbor under the gaze of the Statue of Liberty - with my mom singing God Bless America. The words you just read might sound "corny" to some, but to me they remain true, critically important investments in what America has meant to so many who never knew liberty before landing at Ellis Island - notions taken for granted by too many of my fellow Americans today.
A final word: God Bless America!
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