Armenian Bar Association 37th Annual Meeting

9:00 am – Registration & Breakfast

9:15 am – 10:45 am– From the Capitol to the White House: Insider Attorneys’ Perspectives on How They Got There and What They Do (1.5 hours CA CLE/CPD)

11:00 am – 12:30 pm – Bridging Innovation and Regulation: Advancing U.S.–Armenia Technology and Business Collaboration
(1.5 hours CA CLE/CPD)

12:45 pm – 2:00 pm – Luncheon & Program

2:15 pm –3:15 pm – General Membership Meeting

Election of Board of Governors & Committee Reports

3:30 pm – 4:00 pm – Beyond Election Day: The State of Democracy and the Rule of Law in Armenia (0.5 Hours CA MCLE / Ontario CPD Credit)

6:30 pm – 9:30 pm – The Final Pour: Armenian Affinity Networking Mixer

Optional | No host bar

There is a limited number of discounted rooms arranged at the Capital Hilton and they may be reserved using this weblink: Book your group rate for Armenian Bar Association Meeting

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Speaker Bios

Jared Genser, Esq.

Jared Genser has been an international human rights lawyer for more than two decades. He is Managing Director of Perseus Strategies, outside General Counsel to the Neurorights Foundation, and a member of the Advisory Board to the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at Harvard University, where he was previously a Senior Tech Fellow. He also served as Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect to the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (2020-2025).

Genser was previously a partner in the government affairs practice of DLA Piper LLP and a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. He has also been adjunct faculty at Stanford Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, University of Pennsylvania Law School, and University of Michigan Law School, where which he taught courses about the UN Security Council. In addition, he was a Visiting Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy (2006-2007).

Genser holds a B.S. from Cornell University, an M.P.P. from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was an Alumni Public Service Fellow, and a J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School.

Julie Babayan
Senior Manager for Govt Relations and Public Policy, Adobe

Julie Babayan is Senior Manager, Public Policy, with Adobe’s Policy, Government, and Ethical Innovation team in Washington, D.C. In her role at Adobe, she focuses on a range of global technology policy topics including artificial intelligence, intellectual property, and education issues. As part of Adobe’s internal AI Ethics Committee, Julie worked on a diverse, cross-functional team that helped develop and implement Adobe’s AI ethics principles and processes. Before joining Adobe, Julie worked on technology policy issues on Capitol Hill, serving as Counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy & Commerce and in the Office of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. Before working on Capitol Hill, Julie practiced telecommunications law in Washington, D.C. Julie is a native of Boston, Massachusetts. She received her B.A. magna cum laude from Amherst College, and her M.S. and J.D. from Boston University.

Aram A. Gavoor

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs; Associate Professor of Law; Professor (by courtesy), Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public Administration

Aram A. Gavoor is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and an internationally recognized public law scholar with a focus on regulation, technology, and national security. His co-authored work was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Department of Commerce v. New York (2019). His scholarship has earned placement in the Florida Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, Ohio State Law Journal, and other law journals. He has briefed and argued over a dozen high-profile public law cases before a majority of the U.S. Courts of Appeals and numerous cases before almost a third of the 94 U.S. District Courts. Associate Dean Gavoor frequently shares his national security, technology law, regulatory, and federal courts expertise with international news media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNN, BBC World News, NBC News, and numerous other outlets. In 2021, the National Law Journal named Associate Dean Gavoor a Rising Star (top 40 under 40) honoree.

Earlier in his career, Associate Dean Gavoor served as Senior Counsel for National Security in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, as third-in-rank Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget, and in private practice. He received the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service in 2019, the Civil Division Special Commendation Award in 2020, 2019, and 2018, and a Commendation from the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section of the Criminal Division in 2018.

Associate Dean Gavoor previously served on the law school’s part-time faculty from 2008-2017 before accepting a term-limited position as Visiting Associate Professor from 2017-2019. He received GW Law’s Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award from the 2020 and 2017 graduating classes. He currently teaches the Administrative Law, Issues & Appeals Clinic, which he founded. For years, he taught Constitutional Law II, Administrative Law, National Security Law, and Federal Courts.

Greg Demirchyan, J.D., Ph.D.

Greg is an attorney specializing in technology law and is currently heading two startups focused on AI safety and governance. He was recently the Senior Law and Society Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, where he worked to develop technical standards and policies for evaluating risks posed by advanced frontier models. Before this, Greg was a partner at a litigation firm in San Francisco and served as general counsel for several tech startups. Greg also worked internationally as lead advisor for the American Bar Association on rule of law and anti-corruption. He is a member of several technology advisory committees and working groups, including the norm forecasting group at the Center for Cyber Social Dynamics. He has presented and published papers on such topics as algorithmic fairness, regulatory alignment, the ethics of AI, data privacy, and technology transfers. In addition to his JD, Greg holds a PhD in moral and political philosophy.

Zmarak Khan

Zmarak Khan is Deputy Chief Counsel with the Commercial Law Development Program at the U.S. Department of Commerce. His work includes legal and regulatory capacity-building, commercial law development, and support for institutional reforms that strengthen trade, investment, commercialization, and rule-of-law frameworks. In the Armenia context, Zmarak has been involved in recent regional IP engagement, follow-up coordination on judicial and prosecutorial training, Armenia’s IP and high-tech strategy work, and broader efforts to connect Armenian innovation, IP protection, commercialization, and U.S.-Armenia business collaboration.

Lauren Sarkesian

Lauren Sarkesian is Senior Online Safety Counsel at Apple, working in Apple’s Washington, D.C. office. Before joining Apple, Lauren most recently served as Counselor to the Chair of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent executive branch agency that conducts oversight of government surveillance programs. Lauren also previously worked at New America’s Open Technology Institute, where she focused on privacy and other tech policy issues. Prior, Lauren served in legislative roles within the Obama White House, the U.S. Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives. Lauren holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Sarah Leah Whitson 

Served as the Executive Director of DAWN since 2020 and previously served as executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division from 2004 – 2020, overseeing the work of the division in 19 countries, with staff located in 10 countries. She is a widely published writer on human rights and foreign affairs, and her first book with Michael Omer-Man, From Apartheid to Democracy: A Blueprint for Peace in Israel-Palestine, was published in September 2025 by University of California Press.

Philippe Kalfayan PhD

Legal Counsel and lecturer/researcher at the Paris Pantheon Assas Univ./Paris Human Rights Center. He is an Assistant Judge HCR at the National Court for Asylum Rights. He served as Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) from 2001 to 2007 and as a Legal Expert for the Council of Europe’s Directorate General for Human Rights and Rule of Law since 2003. Author : La France et l’Imprescriptibilité des Crimes Internationaux (Pedone, 2015) and La Réparation des Préjudices en Lien avec les Crimes Historiques (TBR Pedone, April 2026).

Moderator Bios

Ani Esenyan

Ani Esenyan is an environmental and energy attorney with a strong background in both private practice and public service. Ani earned her undergraduate degree in Environmental Policy from Fordham University and went on to graduate from Penn State Law.

Ani began their legal career as an associate at Van Ness Feldman, where she focused on environmental law and regulatory matters. She later continued their practice at King & Spalding, further developing expertise in environmental compliance and policy.  Currently, Ani serves as a regulatory attorney at the Department of Energy. The  views expressed by Ani during this pan are her own and do not represent the views of the Department of Energy or the United States.

Karén Tonoyan

Karén Tonoyan is the founding attorney of Tono Law Group LLC, an intellectual property, technology, and business law firm. He is a registered patent attorney whose practice focuses on patent prosecution, IP strategy, technology transactions, startup and investment matters, and cross-border U.S.-Armenia innovation work. Karén serves as Co-Chair of the Armenian Bar Association’s IP/IT, or Techlaw, Committee, where he has helped lead multi-year legal and policy initiatives involving Armenian government counterparts, private-sector stakeholders, universities, diaspora professionals, and international partners.

Alex Bedrosyan

Mr. Bedrosyan practices international arbitration, international litigation in U.S. courts, and public international law. He has represented clients in a range of industries, including aviation, banking, capital markets, carbon, energy, mining and real estate, in disputes involving breach of contract, statute, fiduciary duty, fraud, tort, and breach of treaty.

Mr. Bedrosyan combines strategic business sense, deep factual research, and multilingual and cross-cultural competency. 

In 2025 and 2026, Mr. Bedrosyan was selected to the Lexology Index: Arbitration in the “Future Leaders” category. In 2021 and 2022, he was recognized by The Legal 500 in the United States in the field of International Arbitration.

While in law school, Mr. Bedrosyan’s team from the University of Pennsylvania made it to the final two in the 2016 Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition (out of over 600 teams worldwide).  Mr. Bedrosyan argued in the world championship round before judges from the International Court of Justice. At graduation, Mr. Bedrosyan was awarded the Noyes E. Leech Prize for Highest Achievement in International Law.