About

When he joined BP Turkey as the head of legal, Deniz Reha Özilhan’s first and defining task was the establishment of the legal department in the company. For that purpose he reviewed and rearranged the relationship with the external legal providers and ended contracts with them when necessary: ‘I issued a guide on expertise areas of the lawyers and consultants we work with, and updated their discounted rates for every year’ he adds. This was not the first time that Özilhan had faced this kind of challenge; during his 17 years of in-house experience in a wide range of industries he has twice established a legal department from scratch. ‘My biggest achievement has been using this experience to restructure the legal department at my current company. I am also proud to have built strong relationships with business people wherever I have worked. You can’t have a successful legal team without strong relationships with the business. I work hard to ensure that I am seen as someone who contributes to the team, rather than as the guy that always says “no”’ he comments. When working with outside counsel he would like to see them thinking and acting as business partners, rather than purely legal advisers. ‘I prefer to work with mid-sized firms that often do this better’ he comments.