Interview with: Zihni Bilgehan, Managing Partner

What do you see as the main points that differentiate Ersoy Bilgehan Lawyers & Consultants from your competitors?

Clarity and precision. At Ersoy Bilgehan we recognise that clients prefer clear, to the point and precise advice which they can understand with ease and act upon. We encourage our legal team to adopt this golden rule. Our new clients frequently complain about long and complex advices they receive from some law firms which they find difficult to understand; that they say is why they prefer to work with Ersoy Bilgehan.

Combination of knowledge and experience with commercial realities. We recognize that commercial considerations play a big role in important decisions clients take. Unlike some of our competitors, we are strong believers in balancing legal considerations with commercial realities and are frequently praised by our clients about our approach.

Capable and dynamic. Many of our competitors fail to strike a good balance between junior and senior or partner level participation in work they do. A frequent complaint is that most complex work is carried out by juniors with limited partner supervision or that basic work is handled by partners at very high charge out rates. . Partners of a law firm are crucial but a considerable portion of the work is performed by the senior and junior associates under the leadership of their partners. At Ersoy Bilgehan, we make it our mission to invest in our senior associates and junior associates, encouraging them to think like partners and strive to provide services to the same degree. When dealing with our firm, our clients benefit from the peace of mind that the senior and junior associates who they are dealing with are highly qualified, energetic and business conscious but always supervised by their partner.

Involved and innovative. At Ersoy Bilgehan, our partners are not merely figures behind closed doors. They have an open door policy and are actively involved in disputes and projects and foster innovation in the legal approach taken by the lawyers in their teams. We support our clients in reaching the results they desire with innovative thinking and alternative solutions.

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

While I am optimistic about the legal industry’s potential to grow in many practice areas, some practices especially grab my attention due to the incredible market growth we see. For instance, we see more and interesting work at the intersection of law and technology. There is a convergence between technology and all fields of the law, particularly with the rise of automation and the continued trend of digital transformation (e.g. industry 4.0), the exponential increase in the number of internet-connected “things” (e.g. internet of things), use of artificial intelligence in the full spectrum of business, and evolution of financial services with digital onboarding, API banking, and blockchain. From virtual reality structures to distance tourism software, the demands and needs of the providers and users are becoming more sophisticated with an acceleration that the law is struggling to keep up with. At Ersoy Bilgehan, we take pride in our technical capabilities in understanding the technological concepts behind innovative services, which allows us to adopt an innovation-friendly approach in the interpretation of the law and assessment of the associated legal risks.

Environmental law and its interaction with shipping is also very interesting. As international organisations and industry leaders become more concerned with environmental impact of commerce, green initiatives and green compliant methods and equipment are being introduced to industries that have been active for hundreds of years, shipping being one of most prominent ones. Environmental awareness is becoming more and more important for lawyers not just for ethical reasons but also for being able to provide business aware solutions to legal matters.

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

We consciously and reasonably diversified the firm’s areas of practice. Diversification is necessary to provide better and more comprehensive service to our clients but must be done with care. While we expanded our areas of practice, hired passionate and capable lawyers in these new fields, we refrained from over-diversifying and becoming a law firm that accepts anything that comes their way. Founded as a maritime law firm, we started a corporate, franchise, employment and a finance practice over 15 years ago. While we offered new expertise to shipowners and other current clients, our success and quality of service allowed us to attract out-of-industry clients. In more recent years, we added data protection and IT & Telecoms services to our portfolio and our specialist team showed a commendable growth in this area. Our ship finance practice diversified into project finance and aviation finance.

As Ersoy Bilgehan, we also recognized the importance of multidisciplinary services to be provided to our clients. We have collaborated with tax consultants, information technology experts and others to be able to offer full-fledged support to our clients.

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

Technology changes everything it touches and the legal profession is not immune from this. The opportunities that technology brings is not only limited to increased efficiency in communication with our clients such as via e-mails or teleconference or video calls. The trends of digitisation and automation have been reshaping how legal firms service their clients, allowing them to reduce their costs while at the same provide higher-quality services with better fact-finding, project management, and visualization. We fully welcome digitisation and automation in our work processes where appropriate. For instance, our IT & Telecoms team utilises a number of project management software and in-house developed automation tools for data management, risk grading, and process mapping.

The recent Coronavirus pandemic across the globe also brought with it many technological changes and developments. Businesses recognise that digitalisation is inevitable if their businesses are to survive and compete. Law firms are no exception. We have adapted very quickly to the technological changes. We have recently participated in a virtual LCIA arbitration hearing with many witnesses from around the globe which proceeded smoothly. We have gained immense knowledge and knowhow from this experience and will encourage its use in future.

We also value the efficiency of distributing information via social media and digitised client alerts. We frequently notify our clients of new legislation, changes in law, precedents and other relevant developments so that they are abreast with these and take early action to avoid finding themselves in conflict with or contravention of them.

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

We have recently represented a global leisure brand in a criminal proceeding initiated against one of its properties in Turkey due to the alleged unlawful processing of a customer’s personal data. We submitted defence pleadings to the prosecutor’s office on behalf of the client and at the same time, assisted the client in dealing with the multi-jurisdictional data access requests received from the customer under GDPR and Turkish Personal Data Protection Law. Our team closely coordinated with the client to generate a general strategy and adaptation of the same to ever-changing circumstances in the prosecution and data access request procedures. In the end, the charges against the property were dropped, and the customer’s access requests have been duly handled, without leading to any further action from the Turkish Data Protection Authority.

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

We are strong believers that law firms should be able to demonstrate to their clients that they have stability, continuity and strategic direction. Clients demand this from their law firms with whom they have strong relationships. They shy away from law firms that have a high turnover of lawyers since it is not just the firms that pay the high costs of lawyer turnover, it also impacts the clients. It is also important for clients to understand what strategies their law firms have going forward. It is for this reason that we at Ersoy Bilgehan are striving successfully to recruit and maintain well educated and able team of lawyers who share the same vision as the partners and expand our capabilities to areas where clients’ future expectations are focused; such as IT Law, Data Protection, Blockchain etc. In three years from now we expect to have fully adapted to the digitalised world which will not only provide our lawyers and clients more flexibility it will also cut down significantly on overheads and expenses that can only be welcome by our clients. We also intend to expand our practice areas to meet our clients’ demands.