Could you share with us the story of your path to becoming an in-house counsel? What motivated you to choose this career path?

My journey to becoming an in-house counsel was greatly influenced by my education.  In the last year of my master’s in Law at Bern University/Switzerland, I was having “Air Law” lectures and my professor was and still is a well-known aviation lawyer in the sector.  Having heard how she handles problematic topics and what she has achieved in various successful challenges over the years inspired me very much and helped me to lead my career path to aviation.  Combined with my passion for aviation, it became clear that working as an in-house counsel for an airline was the perfect blend of my academic pursuits and professional interests. 

In your role as an in-house counsel, what are the main responsibilities and tasks you handle on a day-to-day basis?

I am mainly responsible for reviewing the contracts from the legal aspects, participating in negotiating agreements, providing legal opinions for various corporate matters to our internal departments (Commercial, Technical Operations, Procurement, Finance, etc.), and handling corporate governance matters such as the documentary processes of the general assembly, board of directors’ resolutions, and preparing presentations to be made to our Management, etc.  Also, specifically, I coordinate the aircraft leasing processes by evaluating and negotiating the lease terms with lessors from the legal point of view and following the required documentation for the other party’s (lessor’s) satisfaction until the Aircraft is delivered and registered in Turkey.  Once the negotiation and documentation phases have been finalised, I arrange to sign the aircraft lease agreements before the notary as a proxy of my company. 

What are some of the key challenges you have faced as a rising star in-house counsel, and how have you overcome them?  

One of the key challenges I’ve faced as a rising star in-house counsel is gaining practical experience and applying theoretical knowledge to real-world scenarios.  However, through continuous learning, mentorship, and hands-on experience, I’ve been able to bridge the gap between academia and practice, allowing me to overcome challenges with confidence and competence.  There are many disputes that companies might be facing under various laws, same as in my firm, and as a rising star in-house lawyer, I need to analyse the discrepancy and the final target our company is willing to achieve so that I can bring all the parties to the same point with expected satisfaction.  As said in the previous point above, my main responsibilities are reviewing the contracts and giving legal opinions for corporate matters, however, mostly we receive requests from our management and/or internal departments on an irregular basis with a limited deadline based on the commercial deals our company enters into.  Once we receive such kind of request, we need to prioritise it above all of our daily workload, and that challenges us to balance our working list and make sure all requests are satisfied properly on their specific time.  I follow up very closely all the processes which I am responsible for, and having that necessary and sufficient planning, that is easy to accomplish to create such kind of balance regarding my daily work.