Navigating Legal Horizons: A Conversation with the Founding and Managing Partner Duygu Kılıç Çaylı at Kılıç Çaylı & Partners Law Firm

1) What do you see as the main points that differentiate Kılıç Çaylı & Partners Law Firm from your competitors?

As Kılıç Çaylı & Partners, we derive our strength primarily from the talent and performance level of our employees. To achieve this, we attach great importance to our in-office policies and personal and professional development activities. The fact that our in-office communication, office policies and training programs are development-oriented distinguishes us from other offices.

In this way, we strive to ensure a multidimensional perspective across our entire team. We realize that legal issues cannot be resolved without a cumulative perspective. In addition, we manage the legal processes with a client-oriented perspective, thus providing regulatory compliance, litigation follow-up and consultancy services, considering the requirements of commercial life. In this way, we can generate alternative solutions and contribute to the unblocking of operational and commercial processes.

We are aware that legal issues need to be resolved rapid. Therefore, it is very important for us to ensure timely, honest, and transparent communication with our clients. Business life requires quick decision-making and implementation. Therefore, decision makers need to be aware of the risk in a timely manner and make their commercial decisions accordingly. However, despite this, we never compromise on our diligent and meticulous work. All our work goes through several different stages of scrutiny.

Finally, we believe that the speed with which we can adapt to the client's needs sets us apart from other law offices.

2) Which practices do you see growing in the next 12 months? What are the drivers behind that?

Environmental law and sustainability practices have been in the spotlight for some time. With artificial intelligence gaining popularity, I think data law will gain popularity once again. With the new derivative instruments that will be developed, I think that important changes are coming in capital markets law. Of course, we will also be elaborating on startup law, banking, and finance in terms of sustaining technology and production activities.

3) What's the main change you've made in the firm that will benefit clients?

This year we have especially increased our checklists. Checklists are absolutely indispensable in the management of a legal process. They ensure that everyone, from legal interns to partners, is on the same page and that multi-step processes are monitored. Using both software and various documentation formats, we create checklists, audit our work and submit them for client approval. We have found that this significantly reduces the error rate.

Apart from this, we are able to provide a cumulative perspective as we can look at client companies almost like an outside eye. In the process, we offer software recommendations that can help clients in legal processes, from human resources to operational units. We contribute to their more effective use of technology in compliance with legislation.

4) Is technology changing the way you interact with your clients, and the services you can provide them?

With the change and development of technology, we can provide environments where we can communicate with clients faster and more securely.

We make significant use of legal software. We regularly record our time records in the software system to send to clients. Thus, we can prepare hourly reports to clients on a monthly basis. This allows us to provide transparent and comprehensive reporting and fair pricing.

Finally, since we are also aware of the importance of cybersecurity, we use corporate web-based applications.

5) Can you give us a practical example of how you have helped a client to add value to their business?

Our guidance enabled a tech giant client to register its wearable smartwatch in Turkey under the medical device legislation, thereby enabling the product to be placed on the market. This also opened an important door for the company to launch wearable technology products in the upcoming years. The company was provided with accurate and complete information on the medical device legislation, they obtained a medical device sales authorization certificate, and the company's in-house lawyers were informed on how future products should be assessed for compliance.

I would like to provide another example: A few of our clients wanted to expand their business lines, taking into account the risk arising from legal disputes in their companies. For example, we had clients who wanted to operate in the education sector, who wanted to explore the insurance sector. Considering the legal aspects of these fields, we provided legal consultancy on choosing the most suitable fields of activity for the organizational structure and profitability rates of the companies. In this sense, we supported companies to brand and gain recognition in various fields. For example, we directed one of our clients to the production sector in order to minimize the risk and maintain commercial profitability, as a large number of workers are employed in most of their public projects and this leads to an increase in labor law disputes.

6) Are clients looking for stability and strategic direction from their law firms - where do you see the firm in three years’ time?

Yes, we do. We have a very diverse client portfolio. So we can look at different sectors from the outside and see the picture cumulatively. This allows us to be informed about good ideas and strategies. From a strategic point of view, we provide our clients with the necessary alerts, we provide networking, we try to outline the road map ahead of them even when they are starting a new project. We ensure that they take precautions against risks that may arise in commercial life, not only with our understanding of legislation, but also with our case experience.

In three years, we want to be an office that is specialized in at least 3 more areas of law, but at the same time, we want to be an office that provides all the legal services that a company may need, with a boutique approach but with a global impact. We want to spread our effectiveness in Ankara to Istanbul and globally. We are one of the best law offices in Ankara, and we want to continue our quality, diligent and meticulous work while expanding our influence on Istanbul and globally. Because for us, the legacy of Kılıç Çaylı & Partners is to never compromise on the quality of our work.