Dirk Brian Paloutzian

Mr. Paloutzian has been practicing law for more than 20 years. He specializes in defense of health care providers in professional liability cases, probate litigation, business litigation and agribusiness. Prior to joining Baker Manock & Jensen in 2002, Mr. Paloutzian spent over five years as a Deputy District Attorney for the County of Fresno where he prosecuted elder abuse, sexual assault, homicide, gang, 10-20-life and Three Strikes cases. In 2000, he was selected to be the County’s first elder abuse prosecutor and he spent two years handling both physical and financial elder abuse exclusively. He was the first prosecutor in Fresno County to convict at trial a defendant charged with elder abuse. He has tried more than 20 jury trials and numerous bench trials.
Mr. Paloutzian received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, with distinction in general scholarship, in 1991. He received his J.D. from the University of California, Davis, King Hall School of Law in 1994. In 1994, Mr. Paloutzian served as an extern to the Honorable Marvin R. Baxter, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court.
Mr. Paloutzian sits on the Board of Governors of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers, San Joaquin Valley Chapter (2007 - present) and the Board of Directors of the Fresno Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Service (2009 - present). He routinely presents at Baker, Manock’s Central Valley MCLE Day on the subject of probate litigation. Mr. Paloutzian served as the Chair of the Fresno County Bar Association’s Criminal Law Section and on the Board of Directors of the Fresno Philharmonic from 2007 – 2013.