Robert Sarkisian

Associate Attorney, Stoel Rives

This story is part of our July 2026 Young Professionals issue. To read the print version, click here.

In just 31 years, Robert Sarkisian has come a long way — especially for a Russian-Armenian immigrant whose English-language studies consisted of watching American cartoons with his twin sister.

Sarkisian is an attorney with Stoel Rives law firm, a graduate of the McGeorge School of Law, and, prior to that, he earned a bachelor’s degree in managerial economics from UC Davis. His sister and cartoon-watching cohort, Tatyana Nersisyan, has a degree in criminal justice from Sacramento State and now works in the home-hospice business owned by her husband’s family.

“Through necessity as well as from pride,” Sarkisian says, his parents passed on their strong work ethic to their two children. “We started working in retail and other jobs from a pretty early age,” he says. “We weren’t exactly trained for anything, so we learned to think on our feet. Our parents couldn’t afford to put us into private educational programs.”

His dad, Abgar, “would work mornings at a pizza shop and nights at a Taco Bell — and when he could, he taught piano and worked as a traveling musician.” His mom, Irina, “took on all kinds of clandestine housecleaning jobs” — meaning, ones that didn’t come through any employment agencies or established services.

“They were figuring things out as they went along,” he says. In practice, this meant that no one was around to tell the parents or children how to fill out various forms, such as for school and medical coverage, “so we had to just plunge into the infrastructural paths of society.”

One pathfinder and mentor was a relative, attorney David Muradyan. “When the time came for me to figure out if I wanted a career in the law, David told me all about what being a lawyer was like and even about being a law student.”

Sarkisian says he thinks of being an attorney “as basically being there to help people. In my mind, we’re very much in the service industry.” In fact, one component of that industry, retail sales, was the first stop on his career path — and when he worked as a Russian translator for the Best Buy store in Citrus Heights, a city of approximately 3,000 Russian and Slavic families, he became the top salesperson in his territory.

In addition to his lawyering at Stoel Rives, Sarkisian is on the board of the grassroots nonprofit Welcome Home Housing, whose mission is to provide long-term and affordable shared housing, as well as support for independent living, to adults experiencing various mental health challenges. “WHH provides a stable place to live in a positive community,” he says. Unique for a majority of nonprofit boards, these directors get their hands dirty — physically helping their clients move when needed, as well as pitching in with landscaping maintenance and even some cleaning jobs.

Earlier in his career, Sarkisian was a member of another nonprofit, Alchemist Community Development Corporation, where he served on its workforce development advisory committee. “We connected underserved communities to land, food and career opportunities if they aspired to be in that business,” he says.

Part of Sarkisian’s job is advising employers on the rapidly emerging challenges of AI in the workplace. As his legal career continues apace — he’s considered a skillful litigator, and his clients range from start-ups to national corporations — Sarkisian says his upbringing and initial outsider status make him sensitive to the issues faced by other society newcomers, as well as those who might feel they’re simply missing out.

As the country celebrates its 250th anniversary, he says, “I can tell you, as an immigrant, that I’d love to see us go back, as a nation, to the hopes of the American Dream — a life of opportunity without barricades based on race, creed or country of origin.”

Sarkisian and his wife, Lusine, who he says is “fully Armenian,” have two sons: 3-year-old Abgar, named for Sarkisian’s father, and Noah, who’s a year-and-a-half old. They also have a pet Pomeranian, Sona, who’s 11.

“Before I had kids, I had nieces and nephews, and I always wondered why their parents didn’t have hobbies,” Sarkisian says. “Now I know.”

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View the list of honorees from 2015 through 2026.

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