According to the president of “Malkhasyan Advocacy Center”, lawyer Gurgen Malkhasyan, the law field is a family profession. We talked with the president of the advocacy office about the activities of the center, administrative relations in and outside the court, and constitutional norms for lawyers. The details are in the interview of “Armenian Law Firtms” series.
-How did the idea of creating a legal firm emerged?
-The idea issued from the legal orientation of my family. My father was a lawyer, and since 1972 he worked as an advocate for many years, then I also started the same work after receiving education in Law. Advocateship has always been in the first place for me, I had offers of working in the public sector, my activities were very different in the newly created state institutions, for example, I was the first chief of the board of the first legal firm during the introduction of the civil service system, then I worked in the State Labor Inspectorate that was still in the period of formation. I also worked in the NA, I was the deputy mayor of Gyumri, but I personally presented an application for returning to my favorite legal work.
–When did you open the office?
-When I was working as a deputy mayor, my sons graduated from the Law Department of YSU and they opened the office, about 3 years ago.
-So, Law is a family profession for you.
-Yes, that’s why it is called “Malkhasyants”. My daughter also studies law now. I think that a child, who is brought up in a family of lawyers, already has the legal terminology, approaches, and thinking in the subconscious level, and it is more credible that he/she will become a good specialist. In any case, I see the effectiveness. I am satisfied by my sons’ professional skills and their ambitions of constant development. They are both students of the School of Advocates and will soon graduate. At the same time we are trying to choose future advocates for our firm, higher educational institutions send many students for practice.
-Do you have any branches in marzes?
-Now we have a branch in Gyumri, as well as in Ijevan. We are also going to open branches of our firm in all marzes, because this is not only profitable from the point of view of business, but also from the point of view of providing real legal consultancy and helping people.
-You solve family problems, in what other fields do you work?
-We usually deal with civil or administrative problems, beginning from administrative representation, which is very necessary. In my opinion, today the administrative representation is no less important than the judicial, because the future starts from it, if the right administrative representation is provided, then the necessity of presenting the problem in the court will disappear. The citizen cannot present his/her right properly in the administrative organ, and that organ sometimes has some flaws which can cause a problem. And if the lawyer presents the problem in the right way to the administrative organ, then the representative sees the reality and that there is an objective solution, that’s why very often he/she can provide support, and if he/she does not have a wish then there can be a fear that he/she will be accused in the court for the same problem: so what is the use from complicating things? The administrative representation is a very important circumstance nowadays. In addition, we deal with civil cases by all the branches of the Code, beginning from inheritance, property, family issues as well as labor problems, etc.
-What per cent do the victories of your cases form?
-Frankly speaking, I do not carry such statistics, but I have an important principle, if I study the case and see that the probability of its legal solution is lower than 80 %, then in any case I inform about it and avoid taking the case. We do not want the citizen to do unnecessary expenses, even for defending the legal rights; we do not want our prestige to be shadowed because of it. Even if it is a very difficult case, I will not take it, if I do not have the belief that I can provide legal effectiveness. As a constitutional norm, we have a principle in our office, we never ensure a result. Instead, we ensure maximum high quality legal service.
-And do you have any motto?
-We very often use the following motto: the priority of the right over the law. We adopted that principle because in any case the right is a priority, and the law is created for stimulating the realization of the right. Sometimes when talking about law, it is limited to the fundamental right, and it is not right in our opinion. Fortunately, in our country the legal field also adopts the principle of the priority of the right.
Interview: Gevorg Tosunyan
Photos: Aleksander Sargsyan
Author of the idea: Karen Zadoyan
Other interviews of the series:
“Who is the King of the Jungle?” the Judge’s Question shocked the Advocate
“Our Objective was to create a Universal Office of Advocates:” Karen Sardaryan
The Profession of a Lawyer is obliging Morally as well։ Grigor Minasyan
The Lawyers of “Legal lab” decided to build a working culture in the legal field
“We work on case as a team and hold responsibility as a team”, – law firm founder
