About
FOUNDING & MANAGING PARTNER
Mary Arutyunyan is the founding and managing partner of Three West a.p.c., a Los Angeles litigation and advisory boutique. She built the firm on a simple premise: the intellectual rigor and tactical discipline of elite international practice, delivered with the efficiency and adaptability a boutique can offer.
Today Mary brings excellence and firepower to complex commercial, contract, insurance, and real property disputes, litigating in California's courts and arbitrating in fora across the country. She recently secured a successful result for a law firm in a commercial arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association, seated in Texas and governed by Oklahoma law. She is at her sharpest in the difficult case and the lopsided fight.
That capability was forged in international practice. Before founding the firm, Mary spent four years in the Paris and London offices of Shearman & Sterling LLP, among the world's leading international arbitration practices. She represented a French-German consortium as claimant in one of the largest ICC arbitrations of its kind — a multi-billion-dollar dispute arising from the construction of a nuclear power plant in Finland — where, still a junior associate, she held primary responsibility for the defense to the respondent's quantum counterclaims and helped lead a team of more than fifteen lawyers across the claimants' principal and satellite proceedings. She also represented a major French utility against the Republic of Hungary in UNCITRAL proceedings and a Spanish steel group in an ICC non-compete dispute. Earlier, at WilmerHale in London, she worked under Gary Born, contributing to his treatise International Commercial Arbitration — long the field's leading reference.
Mary earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center and her undergraduate degree, also magna cum laude, from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University.
Representative Matters
- Secured a favorable result for a law firm in a commercial arbitration administered by the AAA, seated in Texas and governed by Oklahoma law.
- Represented a client against major financial institutions in a dispute over the unlawful seizure of funds.
- Advised an entrepreneur through due diligence, negotiations, and related transactional matters.
Admissions & Languages
New York (2013) · California (2018) · U.S. District Courts for the Central, Northern, and Southern Districts of California English · Armenian · French