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

I wanted to start my career in a large and diverse law firm, preferably in the Legal 500, because in my opinion, although it is best for a lawyer to specialize in one area, he/she should first gain general legal knowledge. For example, even if you are a very good maritime lawyer, people will not ask you about freight refunds in your social environment. Everyone will have questions about criminal, enforcement, inheritance or divorce. Even if you don’t know everything in these areas, it is important to at least have an average knowledge that is enough to reason and give the closest answer to the truth. I worked to gain this experience for the first 3 years of my professional life with the internship. But now, in the 2nd stage, my goal was to turn to a field I was interested in and to become an in house lawyer of a company operating in this field. In this process, I started my master’s degree in Information Technology Law. I was happy to find the area that I was passionate about in my profession.

But I thought that in addition to being a lawyer, I should have experience and education in another profession related to law, so I took Compliance Management training. A few months after completing my education, I entered the emerging Fintech sector in Turkey and started working as a compliance specialist at Vepara in this context. After 9 months of working in this position, I was offered to become a corporate lawyer and I am currently working as an inhouse lawyer. I never dreamed of opening my own office. I always wanted to be under the roof of a large and corporate company and work as an inhouse lawyer in a more dynamic structure. Because in my opinion, inhouse advocacy is the most colorful part of this profession. Beyond being a lawyer, depending on the line of business of the company you work for, you may even feel like a software developer, advertiser, designer, fashion designer. Because in order to do your job in the best way, you need to have a good command of the sector you work in.

This means adding different experiences and professional knowledge on top of being a lawyer. This is exactly what I prefer, as I want to improve myself in every field and be a cultured and well- equipped person in general. At the moment, I feel myself as an important part of finance and technology and I want this to increase even more. I believe that I will be happy to evaluate different experiences in the future of my professional life, again in the line of IT law.

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

Currently, I am the only in-house lawyer of the company and we will expand the team with the growth of the company in the future. However, there is also a law firm we work with. In this context, we continue our work in coordination on technical issues. Since I am the only lawyer in the company, I carry out all legal processes. The biggest part of my workload is contracts. All contracts to be signed with customers are subject to my approval and revision, and I conduct contract negotiations. I ensure the follow-up of all lawsuits filed by or against the company.

In addition to lawsuits, I am also responsible for the actions to be taken regarding complaints pending before arbitration committees and enforcement proceedings. In addition to these, FinTech is a constantly changing and developing sector in Turkey and in this context, legislations are frequently amended. Accordingly, together with the compliance team, we closely follow the legislative changes. In the event of a change, we update company policies and procedures accordingly, and prepare an information text to inform the company about the legislative change. If the legislative change necessitates a revision in our company contracts, I immediately make this update and send our new contracts to all units. Since we are a financial institution, we frequently receive letters from institutions such as the police and prosecutor’s office requesting information. If a person with a criminal record has a virtual wallet account with our company, I ensure that the necessary actions are taken immediately. And again, it is very important for us to prevent the use of payment services to launder criminal proceeds. In this context, legal, compliance and risk departments work in coordination and meticulously.

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

First of all, although I work hard and spend a lot of time to improve myself, I am only a lawyer for 3 years and there are many things I have not seen and experienced in this profession. Being the only in-house lawyer of a company built on a large capital, of course, scares me at times. From time to time, the possibility that my knowledge may not be enough to navigate a complex maze alone scares me. But I was always a child with big dreams and this has never changed as an adult. Therefore, going after my fears and anxieties is a necessity for me to reach my dreams. If I need to explain one of the things that challenges me in the sector I work in, FinTech is a very technical field and unfortunately the language of legislation is not clear enough. When I started working in this sector, the most challenging part for me was learning the technical terms and understanding the regulatory language. The definitions used for a product or business model in daily life are explained with a completely different word in the legislation. Therefore, it is quite challenging for a newcomer to the sector. When there is something I don’t know, I don’t hesitate to ask someone who knows, and this is how I overcame this challenging process. However, I can say that I am lucky in this regard because I work with a sincere team that is eager to help.

I am sure that if I worked in a work environment that made me unhappy, I would have overcome this process more difficult, but fortunately for me, this was not the case. Here, I can actually see how important teamwork is for every employee. I think that what makes a workplace endearing is working with a good manager and a good team rather than salary and title. Especially as a female lawyer, I have unfortunately been exposed to mansplaining by male lawyers in my past experiences. IT law is interpreted as a more masculine field in some minds. During my master’s degree, I witnessed a well-known lecturer in the sector, while explaining a software-related topic in class, turning to female students and saying “You can understand, can’t you?” with a condescending look. I can say that I hate the fact that computer and technology-related issues are still reserved for men in today’s world and that the knowledge and ability of a woman working in this field is questioned. We live in an age of technology where everything is at our fingertips and I wish for a world where a person’s knowledge and ability in their profession is not measured by their gender.