Employment Litigation Dir. Espouses & Protects Workers’ Rights

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Employment Litigation Director Espouses and Protects Workers’ Rights

Dan Baldwin • Mar 01, 2023

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Emilia Arutunian

Gomez Trial Attorneys

755 Front Street

San Diego, CA 92101

(619) 237-3490

www.getgomez.com

"The United States often gets a bad reputation for being a litigious country, and I certainly understand the sentiment of that ideology, but, on the other side of the coin, the systems in place protect human rights like no other country in the world,” says Emilia Arutunian, Partner and Director of Employment Litigation at Gomez Trial Attorneys.

Arutunian speaks from experience. Her family emigrated to the United States as refugees from the fallen Soviet Union. She was six years old at the time.

Her mother’s Armenian family was forced to flee Baku, Azerbaijan at the fall of the Soviet Union while she was pregnant with Emilia. The family and their friends and associates were persecuted for being Armenian and Christian. Their lives were threatened. They moved to a small home in Kramatorsk Ukraine, along with thirty other family members. She says she led an interesting childhood growing up in a country which was learning to be independent after nearly 70 years of Soviet rule. The country was poor, corrupt, and the crime rate was out of control. There was no justice system. It is easy to understand her commitment to representing clients in need through the U.S. system of justice. She has seen and experienced that “other side of the coin.”

“Still, believe it or not, I believe I had one of the happiest childhoods of most people I know. My family truly made the best out of the circumstances they were in, and I grew up surrounded by so many people and so much love, all of the time,” she says.

Slowly, nearly all of her mother’s family moved to the U.S. through refugee and asylum visas. They were brought in through the International Rescue Committee in El Cajon, San Diego, and were connected with the local Armenian church.

Culture shocks were common for the young immigrant. “I remember when my mom was finally able to buy fresh fruit. In Ukraine, fruits were impossible to obtain. The first time my mom came home from Vons with entire bags of groceries she proudly bought with the food stamps we were so grateful for, I remember very distinctly, looking at my mom with excitement and asking, ‘Are we rich now?’”

Arutunian says, with emphasis, she does not consider her early life a sob story. “I consider these days my greatest blessings, for they formed the foundation of my personality. Hard days can break you, or they can redefine you. Hard days build character. To me, no matter what you achieve in life, success is most accurately measured by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have persevered against the obstacles. We can’t control what happens to us in life, but we can control how we respond.” she says.

Making a Critical Choice at an Early Age

During her early years in school, her mother could not help her with her homework because she did not speak English. Yet she was determined to ensure her children would not only succeed in their adopted country but achieve higher goals. In fact, the early motivation for becoming an attorney came from her mother. “She told me I had three choices. I could become a lawyer, a doctor, or a failure. She really said lawyer or doctor, but I understood what she meant,” Arutunian says.

Life was a challenge, not only culturally but all around, having to navigate through an educational system that neither she, nor any member of her family understood. She had to figure out every step on her own, with the assistance of some high school programs that helped low-income students. Life wasn’t all a struggle though. Arutunian met her husband shortly before she finished college, and they were married two days before she started law school.

She initially chose to become an attorney to please her family and to earn a better life. However, as time passed, she began understanding just how well the U.S. justice system worked, especially compared to the system in the old Soviet Union and the post-Soviet Ukraine. She developed a deep passion in and appreciation for the U.S. legal system, especially how it protects human rights. Committed to achieving her goal, she graduated from San Diego University at age 21 with a major and two minors. She immediately began law school and graduated from the University of San Diego School of Law in 2015 at only 24 years old.

Arutunian attributes much of her success to the application of a quote from Will Smith, a statement she turned into a mission statement for her career and her life. “You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me... But if we get on the treadmill together, one of two things will happen: You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die on that treadmill. I will not be outworked.”

She does not believe hardship is a negative aspect of life. “We are conditioned to avoid it, but many times and for many people, the depth of our struggles determines the heights of our success. Struggle breeds hunger. And that hunger can lead to great success,” she says.

The Evolution of an Attorney

“People spend so much of their lives at work. Every single person deserves a work environment free of harassment, retaliation, and hostility. My goal is to protect employees from illegal work environments and conditions and make sure they understand their rights in the workplace,” Arutunian says. That realization and insight came from direct experience with protecting the employers, not the employees.

Arutunian’s early legal career focused on litigating cases for the defense, including defending Californian businesses against claims and lawsuits involving workplace harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. During this phase of her career, she says she was exposed to the overwhelming challenges employees suffer in the workplace. She realized it was time to make another critical choice and that led eventually to a position at Gomez Trial Attorneys.

Previous experience made the decision to join Gomez Trial Attorneys easy. The firm is well-known and had been on her “radar” for some time. In one of the first defense trials she worked on, her employer represented a defendant against one of the Gomez Trial Attorneys firm clients. She was very impressed with John Gomez’s presentation of the case at that trial and the experience stayed with her.

Arutunian says, “Shortly after that case, I determined I absolutely loved litigation, but that the doom and gloom of personal injury law was not for me. I made the switch to specialize in employment law, where I could still litigate cases, without being constantly exposed to horrific injuries. I am a passionate person, and I put 110 percent into everything I do, but I cannot fight for things I do not believe in. I remained on the employment defense litigation side for most of my career, defending employers from lawsuits brought by employees.”

Fast forward nearly a decade, she was in touch with Gomez on a personal injury matter she was referring to his office. He subsequently reached out and informed her he was planning to expand his practice into employment law and asked if she’d be interested in leading the department. She quickly grasped the opportunity, and the deal was done.

Today, her typical client is an employee who has suffered or is suffering workplace issues, including a hostile work environment, workplace harassment, sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, or has experienced wage and hour issues, such as not being given their meal or rest breaks or being improperly classified.

Arutunian was made Department Head of Employment Litigation. “I could not be happier with the journey fate has carved out for my professional career, I have never felt more supported as a woman and a mother as I do at Gomez Trial Attorneys. It turns out, the harder I work, the luckier I get.”

Life Outside the Office

Arutunian balances her life on-the-job with attention to her family, her industry, and her community at large. She is the president of the San Diego County Bar Association’s Employment Law Committee and a co-chair of the Lawyer’s Club Life and Law Committee. She is working on several charitable collaborations with the firm, including free employment law consultations to veterans facing struggles in their workplaces, and a collaboration with a motivational speaker who drives around the country making people’s dreams come true. She also actively participates in the firm’s committees, including the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Committee, and Women Leaders of GTA.

She has spoken often in the past few years on California employment law, including providing California employment law update presentations for various organizations.

Arutunian and her husband have been married for more than a decade. They have two boys, ages two and six. She stays close to her family, including her mother and mother-in-law, her 94-year-old grandmother, her sister and nephew, and a lot of aunts and cousins. “My family is huge, foreign, loud, and a little bit crazy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Family has always been the most valuable source of love in my heart. We are very blessed,” she says. One of the core values at Gomez Trial Attorneys is to “put family first,” and Arutunian described seeing the core value in action—as she is encouraged to stay involved with her kids’ activities and bring her children to the office if she needs. “The most surprising thing for me, was coming into our office kitchen for the first time, and seeing a highchair, packets of animal crackers, and tiny toy dinosaurs scattered in a bowl, for employees’ kids to play with. I knew I had found my forever firm,” she says.

Arutunian is also a self-made athlete who practices all types of exercise, weightlifting, high-intensity interval training, yoga, and running. “Movement is my therapy. You can find me at the gym six days a week, five a.m. to seven a.m. (before the kids wake up). This is my only alone time, and I would not have it any other way.”

She loves to cook, and she cooks all the family meals from scratch. “Most people would say I cook Soviet meals with a healthy twist, it’s another great passion of mine, and one of my love languages.”

The journey from post-Soviet Ukraine to a prominent San Diego law firm has been filled with challenges, but the work ethic and family values she and her family have sustained has made the difficult journey a road to success. “When people ask me how I have the motivation to work so hard, my response is always the same. Not being able to feed your kids is hard. Taking the bus to a minimum wage job to work on your feet for 12 hours is hard. Not having a roof over your head is hard. Having the absolute privilege to become educated and utilize my mind to fight for people’s rights in a beautiful country of endless possibilities isn’t hard. It isn’t hard at all.”

» Education

University of San Diego, School of Law, San Diego, CA
Academic Honors Scholarship (Juris Doctor–2015)
San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
(B.A. Political Science, Magna Cum Laude–2012,
Minor: Russian, Honors and Interdisciplinary Studies)