Interview with: Altan Liman, Partner

What do you see as the main points that differentiate Liman Kurman from your competitors?

Liman Kurman was founded in 2007 by the three name partners, who had extensive experience in different law firms in various areas of practice. Throughout the years, Liman Kurman has consistently developed its practice and earned a high reputation in Turkey, being among the top law firms. Our aim has always been creating and maintaining long term relationships with our clients and understanding the needs of their specific sectors. We focus on creating innovative and tailored solutions to our client’s requirements.

We care and focus on the core values of law practice such as; integrity, transparency and acting in the best interest of our clients while providing legal services. Our M&A and Corporate Law practice as well as IT &Telecommunications, Intellectual Property and Competition Law practices are strongly recommended by our clients. We also have a talented and highly skilled litigation team.

We strongly believe in and uphold the rule of law and proper administration of justice in our jurisdiction and not allow our independence and impartiality, as legal counsels, to be compromised under any circumstances.

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

Our M&A and corporate practice is growing consistently and we have assisted both the buyer and the seller sides in numerous recent transactions. Following last year’s financial circumstances, local companies have become more attractive for the foreign investors. We envisage a steady growth in our M&A practice. Our clientele is mostly interested in opportunities in telecommunications, IT, chemicals and packaging sectors.

Our competition and other regulated market practices have grown significantly in the last 12 months period. One of the main reasons for the growth in competition law practice is our vast expertise in regulated markets and in governmental investigations. In today’s world, especially the IT and Telecommunication companies are being constantly subject to governmental investigations including but not limited to Competition Law. The regulatory bodies in the regulated markets are very sensitive to any infringement and continuously demand information or written explanation for various reasons from companies and their managements, in which we provide legal consultancy services or representation before these authorities.

Our start-up practice, which is mainly related to our extensive IT and telecommunications knowledge, is growing very rapidly. The governmental incentives to technology companies and special technology zones have doubled the number of start-ups in the last 8 months requiring legal consultancy services in a very wide variety of law practice including company law, contracts law, employment, establishment of SPV’s, shareholders agreements, and M&A’s.

What’s the main change you’ve made in the firm that will benefit clients?

We regularly provide legal memoranda and newsletters specifically designed for each of our clients for their relevant sectors. We believe that such legal memoranda, specifically addressed for the clients’ own requirements, attract the clients more.

We have recently implemented new legal software in our firm, in order to keep track of all work done including corporate, consultancy, litigation and debt collection files. Accordingly, we aim to keep up with the new technologies available in the legal area.

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

Our clientele include several local and global technology, telecommunications companies as well as start-ups. Therefore, in the rapidly evolving today’s world, we feel obliged to use the latest technologies available for law firms.

We use specifically designed software in our firm in order to provide legal services at a certain level of quality. This software enables us to be more diligent and transparent in providing our services to the clients.

However, we strongly believe that technology is at the end a tool; and legal profession is mainly a matter of trust relation between attorney and the client. Therefore, we invest more in our people and implement a quality management system at our firm, which urges our members to act on a set of standard principles and procedures.

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

While our clients focus on their core business and main field of activity, we provide legal services in a wide range of sectors and number of clients which provide us continuous and new information from different sectors that enable us to see things from different perspectives. This sector knowledge enables us to bring a different perspective and vision to our clients, which may lead them to different solutions in their decisions.

For example, we follow governmental incentives on a frequent basis and inform our clients accordingly. We have helped several of our clients in establishing R&D centers, for which the government provides certain incentives including but not limited to tax, social security and other benefits. We have also helped another client to be reimbursed for their legal due diligence costs they have incurred due to acquisition of a Spanish company.

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

Our answer to this question would be simply “yes”. While, our local clients look for stability, our international clients, working in a completely different legal environment seek both stability and strategic direction from us. They usually approach us to discuss and confirm their strategy with regards to corporate, compliance and employment matters and governmental institutions.

Moreover, as stated above, we provide them with the latest developments with regards to their fields of activities, through our newsletters published biweekly, covering the main developments related to their practices and the legal aspects in this respect.

Our firm, established in 2007, has earned its reputation by being client and result oriented approach. Taking into account our performance in the last decade, we strongly believe that in 3 years’ time, our firm will continue expanding its practice while strictly following its core values and principles of doing business.