Kaslioglu Law Firm

Evrim Kaşlıoğlu, head of Kaşlıoğlu Law Firm, reflects on how the firm has built its legal expertise around the demands of a rapidly evolving business environment and what it means in practice to stand alongside clients as they navigate that change.   What do you see as the main points that differentiate Kaşlıoğlu Law Firm from your competitors? A particular characteristic of the firm is the depth of its technology-related practice. For over a decade, the firm has maintained a dedicated focus on e-commerce, data protection, cybersecurity, and digital regulation. This allows the firm to engage with clients not only on the legal dimensions of regulatory compliance but on its practical implementation within technical environments. The firm routinely works alongside clients before decisions are taken examining the business rationale, identifying legal exposure at the design stage, and ensuring that the chosen course of action rests on solid legal ground from the outset. The result is counsel that is not merely responsive to problems as they arise, but structurally woven into the client’s decision making process. Beyond technical capability, and beyond the preventive function of legal counsel, what most distinctly sets the firm apart is its approach to legal advice. Many of the firm's clients operate in the technology sector, including companies that, regardless of their scale, retain the agility and pace of a startup. These clients do not come to their lawyers asking whether something is permissible. They come asking how to make it work. Over many years of intensive, round-the-clock collaboration with clients of this kind, the firm has developed a genuine capacity to engage with the commercial logic of a matter, not only its legal dimensions. When this approach is extended to clients who have not previously experienced it, the response is often the same: that the firm thinks differently from other lawyers they have worked with  that it understands the business side of a problem and offers not just legal solutions, but workable commercial ones. That, more than anything else, is what differentiates the firm.    Which practices do you see growing in the next 12 months? What are the drivers behind that? Several practice areas are expected to see increased activity over the coming year. Advertising law and e-commerce regulation continue to generate consistent and growing demand, driven by the expansion of digital commerce and the increasing use of social media, influencer marketing, and online platforms as advertising channels. The regulatory framework governing these activities, including the Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial Practices Regulation and the decisions of the Advertising Board, is evolving, and clients require ongoing guidance to manage compliance and respond to regulatory scrutiny. The volume of e-commerce activity both globally and in Turkey continues to grow, and that growth shows no sign of slowing. At the same time, the legislative frameworks governing digital trade were largely designed for an earlier commercial environment and struggle to keep pace with the realities of modern online business. Bridging that gap requires not only an understanding of the applicable rules, but the experience to apply them to circumstances their drafters did not anticipate. Cybersecurity law is likely to generate significant demand as Turkey's new Cybersecurity Law comes into force. Companies across sectors will need to review their information security structures, address new organisational and documentation obligations, and align with international frameworks such as NIS2. For clients already engaged in privacy compliance, there is a meaningful overlap with existing data protection programmes, which will shape how this work is approached in practice. AI governance is another area where demand is expected to grow. As the EU AI Act begins to apply and Turkish regulatory responses to artificial intelligence develop, businesses with EU-facing operations or EU based clients will need to assess their AI systems against new legal requirements around risk classification, transparency, documentation, and accountability. Fintech and digital payments regulation is also emerging as a significant source of legal work. In Turkey, the regulatory framework governing payment institutions, electronic money, open banking, and digital wallets continues to expand, with licensing requirements and open banking obligations generating immediate compliance demands for payment service providers. Internationally, the crypto asset space is also drawing regulatory attention, with Turkey signalling alignment with the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework. For businesses operating across Turkish and EU facing markets, navigating the interaction between these domestic and international frameworks will require sustained legal guidance over the coming year.   What's the main change you've made in the firm that will benefit clients? Several developments over recent years have shaped how the firm delivers its services, and each has had a practical bearing on the experience of clients. The most structurally significant change has been the integration of the firm's practice areas into a single, coordinated advisory framework. Areas that were historically approached as separate workstreams are now managed with full coordination, drawing on a shared institutional understanding of each client's business, operations, and regulatory exposure. When a new obligation arises, the firm builds on existing knowledge rather than treating each matter in isolation, resulting in greater efficiency and a more coherent overall legal posture for clients. Supporting this model has required sustained investment in the people who deliver it. The firm has recruited lawyers with deep specialisation across its practice areas and has built an internal culture on three foundations that people feel genuinely valued in their environment, that they find professional meaning in their work, and that they are compensated in a way that reflects their contribution. Where those three conditions are met, the result is ownership. Lawyers treat client matters as their own problems to solve. The firm has also embraced an inclusive and participatory approach to leadership, fostering more active collaboration between its emerging specialists and its senior practitioners a dynamic that strengthens both the depth of expertise available to clients and the coherence of the firm as an institution. The firm's turnover is exceptionally low, and that continuity translates directly into client benefit as accumulated knowledge, consistency of advice, and a level of commitment that is difficult to replicate.   Is technology changing the way you interact with your clients, and the services you can provide them? Technology has reshaped how the firm operates internally, in ways that have had a tangible benefit for clients. The shift towards remote collaboration tools, accelerated in the post-Covid period, has eliminated much of the friction that previously accompanied client interaction. Meetings, briefings, and advisory exchanges that once required significant time and coordination now happen efficiently and without unnecessary delay. Equally, the integration of AI assisted tools into the firm's workflows has reduced the time spent on high volume, process-driven tasks, freeing lawyers to focus on work that requires genuine legal judgment and specialist expertise. The effect on the team has been meaningful. When lawyers spend less time on tasks they find mechanical and more time on work they find substantive, the quality of their contribution rises and so does their engagement with it. That shift in how the team works has translated directly into better service for clients. Work that once consumed hours now takes minutes, and the capacity freed up by that change is reinvested into the quality of legal thinking rather than absorbed by process. Clients receive faster responses and the undivided attention of lawyers who are genuinely invested in the substance of their matters.   Can you give us a practical example of how you have helped a client to add value to their business? To support one of Turkey's largest e-commerce platforms, the firm established a dedicated legal team working as an embedded part of the client's operations. This team works alongside the client's internal departments on a continuous basis, developing a deep familiarity with the client's business model, processes, and commercial priorities. The practical value of this structure has been significant. Even through major regulatory changes, the client has been able to navigate new obligations without operational disruption, without incurring costly legal proceedings, and without the inefficiency of repeatedly bringing new advisors up to speed. The continuity of the relationship means that legal issues are identified and addressed before they escalate, and that advice is grounded in an accumulated understanding of the business rather than delivered in isolation from it.   Are clients looking for stability and strategic direction from their law firms - where do you see the firm in three years’ time? Continuity is of genuine value to clients, particularly in areas where the regulatory framework is changing quickly and where the cost of disruption or non-compliance is significant. Clients benefit from advisors who have accumulated knowledge of their business, can anticipate regulatory developments, and provide consistent guidance over time rather than responding to each issue in isolation. What began in 1974 as a modest practice in a single office room has grown into a firm of ninety people serving some of Turkey's largest domestic and international clients across the full range of legal disciplines. Sustaining that trajectory has not been straightforward. It has required consistent dedication and a shared commitment to the firm's standards over many years. That commitment comes from the people within the firm. Because every member of the team treats the firm as their own, the momentum it has built is not dependent on any single individual, and there is every reason to expect it to continue. Over the next three years, the firm expects to deepen its practice both across the technology driven legal fields that continue to develop in Turkey and internationally, and across the areas where the firm has built deep knowledge and experience over many years. E-commerce, fintech, cybersecurity regulation, digital compliance, and cross-border data protection are among the areas at the center of that development. In line with growing demand, the firm is expanding its people alongside its practice, continuing to grow as a specialist firm with particular depth at the intersection of technology and law, while sustaining its established practice across intellectual property, commercial law, employment, and real estate.