Ara Babaian, Esq.

Ara Babaian founded Encore Law Group in 2011 to provide expert legal services to mature companies as well as to early-stage startups and entrepreneurs in the areas of Business and Intellectual Property Law.  Drawing on his business acumen and over 10 years of big-firm experience, Ara represents a wide variety of clients in a number of industries, including Technology, Entertainment and Media, Real Estate, Health Care, Manufacturing and Distribution, Restaurant, Retail and Professional Services.  Ara handles all aspects of company structuring, investment raises and startup matters, mergers & acquisitions, and general corporate matters, including intellectual property and employee and contractor relations.  He also acts as outside General Counsel to many of his clients.

Previously, Ara was a partner at Ervin Cohen & Jessup LLP, in Beverly Hills. While at that firm, he practiced in the firm’s Business Law and Healthcare Law Departments. Prior to that, Ara was an associate at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP, one of the country’s top law firms, where he represented publicly traded companies in SEC Reporting and Registration, Corporate Governance, Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance, and complex Mergers and Acquisitions.

Ara earned his JD in 2001 from Loyola Law School, where he received the Faculty Honors Scholarship and was an editor of the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California at Berkeley where he double-majored in English Literature and Molecular Cell Biology and minored in Creative Writing.

Ara was elected as a Southern California Super Lawyer from 2015 through 2022, as well as a Rising Star previous to that, both honors given only to a few eligible lawyers in California. In 2011, he was selected as one of the best lawyers under 40 by the Armenian Bar Association (a North American organization) and received the same honor in 2012 from the National LGBT Bar Association.