Mark Geragos

Mark Geragos
Birthplace	Los Angeles
Birth date	5 October 1957
Lived in	Los Angeles
Education	Haverford College, Loyola Law School
Profession	Lawyer
Ethnicities	Armenian
Dialects	Western Armenian

Mark Geragos born on October 5, 1957 is a lawyer who has defended such people as pop-star Michael Jackson,Gary Condit, Susan McDougal who was allegedly involved in the whitewater scandal, also involving former US president Bill Clinton and actress Winona Ryder. He also represented Scott Peterson, a fertilizer salesman who was convicted of fist and second degree murder of his wife, Laci, and unborn son Connor.

Geragos was involved in the Axa Insurance Settlement, which is now mired in accusations of large-scale misuse of funds.

Geragos went to Haverford College and then to Loyola Marymount University from where he obtained his law degree. He currently practices in Geragos & Geragos a Los Angeles law firm.

All-Armenian Fund

U.S. Celebrity Lawyer Joins Pan-Armenian Charity Board
Friday 5, May 2006
By Anna Saghabalian

Mark Geragos, a U.S. celebrity lawyer of Armenian descent, was appointed on Friday to the governing board of a pan-Armenian charity, promising to enlist some of his world-famous clients for its fund-raising efforts.

Geragos, who has represented U.S. pop icon Michael Jackson and Hollywood Winona Ryder, joined the Board of Trustees of the All-Armenian Fund Hayastan during its annual meeting in Yerevan.

The body is chaired by President Robert Kocharian and comprises other senior Armenian government officials as well as leaders of Armenian Diaspora communities around the world. They reviewed the fund's ongoing activities and plans for the future.

The focus of those activities remains large-scale infrastructure projects in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The fund has raised, mainly in the United States and Europe, and spent tens of millions of dollars for that purpose ever since its establishment in 1992.

Geragos has already been actively involved in annual Los Angeles-based telethons that raise a large part of Hayastan's revenues. He said he will try to get some of the Hollywood celebrities that have used his expensive services to participate in the next televised fund-raiser which is due to take place this November.

`I will talk to a number of clients,' Geragos told reporters. `I think a couple of them will participate in the telethon this year.'

The attorney has also represented the heirs of victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide in their class-action lawsuits against big U.S. and French insurance companied that were accused of failing to pay death benefits for their insurance policies purchased by Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Both insurers chose to settle the suits with a combined payout of $37 million.

Hayastan, meanwhile, is looking to complete its single largest project yet: the $25 million construction of a 170-kilometer road that will link the northern and southern parts of Karabakh. Work on the so-called `backbone' highway began in 2000 and is slated for completion next year.

The fund, according to its executive director, Naira Melkumian, received some $12.7 million in donations last year, up from $5 million reported in 2003. Melkumian said that despite the sizable increase she believes the fund can and must raise at least $20 million a year. `We are confident that the potential of our people is greater,' she said.

Diaspora-based members of the Hayastan board said a further increase in donations is hampered by a continuing lack of Diaspora trust in the efficiency of the charity and the integrity of its top executives. `There are people in the Diaspora who lack trust, for right or wrong reasons,' said Ruben Vasilian of the Armenian community in Germany. `We must be more transparent.'

Both Vasilian and a board member representing the Argentinian-Armenian community, George Vatbaronian, complained about the quality of construction work commissioned by the fund. `We think the quality of the construction is not as good as it has to be,' Vatbaronian told RFE/RL.

The complaints were echoed by Karabakh President Arkady Ghukasian. `We have problems related to the quality of the work,' Ghukasian told the board. `We believe the fund must oversee things more strictly.'

(Photolur photo: Mark Geragos)

Getting Justice The Geragos Way

http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2013/06/06/getting-justice-the-geragos-way/

COMMUNITY | JUNE 6, 2013 2:40 PM

By Alin K. Gregorian

Mirror-Spectator Staff

LOS ANGELES - Mark Geragos commands attention. Whether it is in front of TV cameras or St. James Armenian Church Men's Club in Watertown, he is able to connect with people. It is almost enough to make one feel sorry for his opponents in court, in front of juries.

Geragos, who heads Geragos & Geragos, a large law firm in Los Angeles, has just released a book, Mistrial: An Inside Look at How the Criminal Justice System Works ... and Sometimes Doesn't, with his law partner Pat Harris.

In the book, which is written in such a way that lay people would understand, through anecdotes, Geragos makes suggestions for changes to the US legal system. Some of his suggestions are appointing judges, rather than electing them, and allowing them a bigger role in plea bargaining.

Another suggestion is to change the sentencing for non-violent drug offenders serving sentences that often surpass those of people convicted of second-degree murder or sexual assault. He and Harris suggest that Congress needs to address the issue of alternative sentencing for drug addicts, as well as the mentally ill.

Most people seem to know Geragos both for the very famous clients he represents, as well as his proud assertion of his Armenian heritage and work on behalf of Armenian Genocide descendants. Among those clients have been Michael Jackson, Chris brown, Winona Ryder and Mike Tyson.

Some, such as Scott Peterson, convicted of first-degree murder, have been vilified in the media. "I think it is unethical to not take a client just because they may be toxic to the public," Geragos said.

While the famous clients can pay well, doing the work is that much harder when there is a media circus, he said. "The media attention compounds the representation. Having to deal with that magnifies the defense and makes it quite a bit more time intensive," he noted.

Still, when asked how he accepts cases, he said something about the client has to appeal to him, even if the client does not have universal appeal.

One case that he accepted about a year ago and meant a lot to him involved an older veteran going up against an insurance company regarding a policy on his house. "The guy was a 90-year-old WWII veteran and the insurance company was just trying to screw him out of $24,000 and I felt like they needed to be tried and have the jury teach them a lesson. Luckily, the verdict came back to hit them with $8 million in total, $7.5 million of which were punitive damages. And to think they could've settled the whole thing for $24,000!"

Being a lawyer came naturally to him, as it was a family profession.

"I loved my father - he is my hero. I used to follow him around. I watched him in court when he was a prosecutor and though I considered going to divinity school - I was talked out of it by the then-archbishop - he thought I could do more good as a lawyer," said Geragos in an interview.

Geragos was well-respected lawyer, but no more famous than other lawyers, until he said, the case of Susan McDougal, the then-fiance of his current law partner, Pat Harris. "I think the trajectory took off when I represented Susan McDougal in the 1990s. That was a watershed turning point for me," he said. McDougal had been one of the people entangled in the White Water case, along with Bill and Hilary Clinton previously, and thus a focus of a federal criminal probe. The case which brought her to Geragos involved her employer accusing her of embezzlement after McDougal's move to Los Angeles. Geragos was able to clear her of all charges.

(Harris did not end up marrying McDougal. "I've got custody of Pat Harris and he is married to a wonderful woman named Carol Welsman, who is an internationally-known jazz singer," Geragos joked.)

It is not only wealthy clients that can enlist the services of Geragos. He said that at any given time, his firm handles 10-12 pro bono cases.

Geragos has been rightly lionized in the Armenian community for his vociferous defense of Armenians not only in TV studios, but in courts.

He and his firm were able to secure a $17 million win in 2005 against the French insurance giant, Axa. They had accused the company of benefiting from the deaths of Armenian policy holders during the Armenian Genocide.

"The Genocide litigation has been extremely personally satisfying to me and has certainly highlighted my career," he noted.

More recently, Geragos, on Anderson Cooper's CNN show, defended the community against the repeated accusations of Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of alleged Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and DzhokharTsarnaev.

"I think it's humbling any time people tell me that [I make them proud]. Anytime I see an Armenian in the media or an Armenian accomplishing something, there is a certain pride I feel to be an Armenian as well," he added.

Geragos said that he sees a shift in attitudes towards lawyers, one in which defense attorneys are treated more as heroes. "I think there's been a definite change in the attitudes towards criminal defense lawyers over time. When I was growing up, you could read books like To Kill a Mockingbird and they were about noble defenders of the underdog. Now, not so much," he said.

In the book, he refers to Nancy Grace, the former prosecutor and current TV host, who can target a defendant vociferously before all the evidence is in. "She has a following and her followers respect that kind of lawyer, and I think that has an impact on the people who watch her and subsequently think that's the way you should approach a criminal," Geragos explained.

One case in the book that he says drove Grace and other programs similar to her was that of Scott Peterson, the California man convicted of murdering his wife, Laci, and their unborn child. In the book, Geragos laments that so many untruths were circulated regarding Scott Peterson, who is currently on death row.

Mistrial is available from Amazon and all major book retailers. For more information on his law firm, visit www.geragos.com.

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