Tigran Ghukasyan

Professor : Corey Williams

Tigran Ghukasyan
Interview- Professional Court Room Actor

Task: According to our textbook the courtroom workgroup earns a living serving the court.
Interview a professional courtroom actor from among the courtroom workgroup (use your
textbook to define). Develop eight (8) questions interview question geared toward the
professional courtroom actor you will interview. Type out the interview questions and
interviewees response. Provide a brief refection about the interview.
For this research paper on interviewing a professional courtroom actor, I have selected,
Allen A.Sarkisian, Attorney at law, from Glendale. I know him personally as in past we have
worked together in a case (Estate Planning) where he was acting on my side. I have asked him a
few questions before assigning my case to him and recorded his responses. Here with I am
writing my questions followed by his responses.

I.

How long have you been practicing law?

Well, I have been working as a Professor in local University handling law classes. Then I
wanted to practice and decided to work on civil and legal cases. I have been practicing as
an active lawyer from past 14 years and guiding 4-5 assistants as of now. Most of them
are fresh out of college and they do help me too in many of my cases. I must say we are a
good team!

II.

What type of cases do you generally handle? How many did you succeed among
them?

Tigran Ghukasyan

I worked on different types of cases which include, family law, Criminal Law and Estate
planning law. I have been associated with many families as Estate planning lawyer in my
locality. I have cleared many cases with success in past and I suppose there were just 3
cases where I could help my clients to the extent they wanted me to but I have taken
measures that they are not ended up in any kind of losses.
III.

Who is your typical client?

As I have been working with many families, and gave satisfactory results in past 14
years, I have got much word on mouth clients who are generally for family law cases and
estate law cases. So I consider that my typical clients are from family law cases.

IV.

How many cases did you handle which were similar to mine?
I have handled 78 cases on Estate planning out of which 43 comes in the same line as
yours. Out of these 43 cases, I have cleared 42 cases and had satisfied clients.

V.

Do you have any other special degree or training other than the degree of law?
Yes! I have done my Estate and Gift Taxing, Elder Law and Income Taxation of Trusts
and Estates apart from my law degree, these certificate courses help me a lot in estate
planning cases as all of these courses are meant to aid estate law cases.

VI.

How are the attorney fee and costs billed?

I charge both Consultation fee and Contingency fee, I collect consultation fee from any
family or criminal cases and for cases on estate planning (like yours) I charge
contingency fee of one third of amount what my clients would be getting if we win the
case.

Tigran Ghukasyan

VII.

Will you be directly handling my case or by paralegals / legal assistants?

Yes, most of the times I will be handling all of my cases and my legal assistants will be
helping in preparing notes and while the case is going on in court they will be there
making note of information relevant to the case. And I will allow them to handle cases
where the probability of winning the case is positive for us.

VIII.

How will you let me know whats happening regarding my case?

I have software developed at my office through which one of my assistant texts my
clients about how things are going on with respect to their cases on weekly basis.

Based on these interview questions and his responses I believed that he is perfect person to get
help from for the estate issue I have got. Now the case is in progress and so far it is going on
smooth and I am positive about the results.

References:
"Top 10 Questions to Ask a Prospective Divorce Attorney." DivorceNet.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr.
2015.