Christopher Markarian

Christopher Markarian is a plaintiff personal injury lawyer and the founder of Markarian Law Group in Yucaipa, California. He represents injured people and families along the pass between Redlands and Banning, handling car accidents, wrongful death and cases against insurance companies and government entities.

Born in Baghdad, Iraq, during the Iran-Iraq war and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, Markarian studied philosophy and theology at a seminary from 14 to 17 before coming to the United States in 1998. He earned a GED in Chicago, worked at a bank and, after Sept. 11, enlisted in the U.S. Navy.

He served first as a gas turbine engineer and then as a cryptologic interpreter, doing intelligence work during the Battle of Fallujah in 2004. He later served as an interrogator in the California National Guard and went to law school to become a JAG officer, earning a master’s degree in national security studies. He speaks seven languages and is a deacon of the Armenian Church.

A personal injury attorney in East Los Angeles showed him that he could serve without a uniform. Markarian made partner at that firm, bought his partner out and opened Markarian Law Group in 2013. He moved the practice east and, in 2021, bought a building in Yucaipa five miles from his home.

He tells prospective clients in serious cases to interview several other lawyers first, because he expects to know them long after the case ends, and he is wary of private equity and offshore call centers eroding the attorney-client relationship. In one case that stays with him, he represented three children after their father was killed by county sheriff’s deputies and carried it to a $10 million jury verdict that was affirmed on appeal.