Thursday, April 14, 2011
Page 3
Armenian Bar Association Honors Sherman Oaks Attorney
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Sherman Oaks attorney Armen K. Hovannisian is slated to receive the Armenian Bar Public Service Award at the organization’s upcoming annual convention in San Francisco April 29, the organization said yesterday.
He is the younger brother of Raffi K. Hovannisian, who founded the Armenian Bar Association and went on to become Armenia’s first minister of foreign affairs.
The elder Hovannisian remarked that his brother “has never sought or received adulation for his pivotal contributions to my life and to the success of the Armenian community.” Hovannisian credited Armen Hovannisian as “the unnamed co-founder” of the Armenian Bar Association and the Armenian Center for National and International Studies as well as the “co-creator of all the works I have realized over the years.”
Vicken Simonian, a founding member of the association, said Armen Hovannisian “has carried the banner of the organization” since it was founded 21 years ago. Simonian praised Hovannisian as “a tireless worker for the Armenian community who is blind to petty differences between political and social groups.”
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Zaven Sinanian also remarked that Hovannisian “has been and continues to be the confidant to all, the center and clearinghouse of ideas and issues.” He said Hovannisian “is the resident historian and the backbone of the ABA, and he has a keen understanding of the diaspora community and its relationship to Armenia.”
Hovannisian graduated summa cum laude from UC Berkeley before attending law school at UCLA and joining the State Bar in 1987. He began his career at the international law firm Chadbourne & Parke, where he chaired its Pro Bono Committee and ultimately received the firm’s highest honor for his continued representation of pro bono clients, according to an ABA release.
The attorney went on to become assistant vice-president of the Markel Corporation, an insurance underwriting firm, and is now a member of a team of litigators retained by a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway to manage complex insurance coverage disputes.
Copyright 2011, Metropolitan News Company