Ali Yilmaz

It is a prevalent point of view that continuing education after acquiring a job is mostly attributed to promotion or salary increase. However, as a matter of fact, the main rationale behind is often overlooked and obliterated and seen as a chore, a burden or something overwhelming. On the contrary, continuing education paves the way for many opportunities, not only for work and wage related matters but also for everything that requires success, passion and determination.

In today’s Turkish law system, laws, regulations, circulars, rulings and court decisions change rapidly. There had been around two-hundred legal amendments in the Banking Law only in 2022. By its very nature, legal employees must keep themselves up to date and agile. From a different perspective, holding a mere degree is not something rare nowadays and if the legal professionals do not enhance their legal background with further education or training throughout the time they spend at their respective legal departments, that would ultimately undermine their capacity to approach complex and complicated legal issues or even their professional visibility in the sector. In order to stand out whilst competing with myriad of lawyers with same qualifications, additional skills and qualifications play a pivotal role in bolstering one’s outlook and assisting them in climbing their career ladder to their ultimate goals.

I have led a large team of more than 60 colleagues including non-legal staff and as a legal manager, I aim to liberate us from this customary narrative of continuing education association solely with promotion. I personally give critical focus on employee’s career planning in this respect. The way I see it, promotion and salary increase are its natural outcome once a legal employee is experienced in all aspects and highly qualified. I observe employee’s skills, capabilities, physical and mental well-being as well as their general contentment about the work they are engaged with. In this regard, I organize regular one-to-one meetings as a means to address their needs and feedback. When we both have a clear understanding as to pinpointing the employee’s motivation and needs, I provide them, if necessary, a clear roadmap in which they can determine their long-term goals, how to work more motivated and more efficiently. This roadmap can be regarded as a guidance where employees can discernably realize how to build professional skillsets, invest in themselves and advance in their roles.

One-to-one meetings also help to stay connected with the team members and allow me to know each team member personally to discover the things we have in common. Formal feedback as a part of performance review once or twice a year is crucial, however it can never replace the value of one-to-one meeting, which promotes team recognition and shows them that you really care about them.

From my perspective, each legal professional must have an insight of work going on in each legal department, and this cross-departmental understanding and knowledge sharing could be achieved through rotation. While employees are outside of their specialized fields, they can develop a variety of legal skills and gain a deeper comprehension of different areas of law. Which eventually shifts their viewpoint, help them see outside the box, make them become better at decision-making and become more versatile and effective in their work. Further, by exposing employees to different parts of the department, new challenges will keep them engaged and prevent burnout whilst dealing with a different sphere of law. It can be argued that this may seem contrary to specialization, however, rotation must be seen as imparting experience and knowledge and reinforcing the overall legal grasp of the entire legal team.

Aside from gaining departmental experiences through rotation, building skills and credentials are majorly obtained, by means of participating in additional education programs. In that respect we work cooperatively with the human resources department and see it as a two-legged education. These are namely; behavioral training and technical training. Behavioral training can be categorized into; leadership, communication, stress-management, problem-solving, emotional intelligence, time-management, presentation and negotiation skills, self-awareness, goal setting and motivation. During these trainings, employees can improve their attitudes, navigate and manage their working environment, rectify their behavioral errors and cooperate with their colleagues in a healthy manner. As far as technical training is concerned, it can take many forms and are directly pertinent with their fields. It enables them to grow and focus solely on the specific areas they need. They are generally chosen in line with the current trends in law or depending on the complexity of the area. Technical training lecturer can be selected either as a notable legal professional or a specific law firm specialized particularly in the subject that requires training. A few trainings align with our needs can be listed as; ISDA documentation, letter of credit, UCP 600, introduction to derivatives, LIBOR and EURIBOR transition, guarantees and URDG, mediation and so forth.

Further to our emphasis and efforts we devote to continuing education, we aspire to guide the sector on this matter. We give significant importance to organize annual Law Meeting Conference day at the bank which has been ongoing for six years now. We invite lawyers, professors to our bank from different sectors, firms and companies where they come together and get the chance to discuss the latest trends, ideas, and best practices. This not only benefits the attendees to stay up-to-date with legal developments in the sector but also creates opportunity to engage with other legal professionals and stay connected, educated and informed. We deem this as a valuable way for legal professionals to see each other’s perspectives, exchange knowledge, experience, and influence the other banks and companies to act in a similar fashion.

We have a vision, as being the organizer of this annual event, we become responsive to the problematic and sophisticated issues, anticipate and respond the varying needs, address the lacunaes in law, provide suggestions and solutions while taking into consideration of the other legal professionals’ thoughts and comments with different backgrounds.

As John F. Kennedy once said: “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other”. In this respect, our vision is to create a modern legal team, which should run with the business at the heart of the organization and be considered as a business partner.