About

What are the most important transactions and litigations that you have been involved in during the last two years?

Siemens Turkey is carving out its entire Gas and Power business. After the global spin off, our new Turkish entity will form an integral part of a new, independent and pure-play energy company with a legacy to serve customers along the energy value chain.

In a recent lawsuit the Court of Cassation entirely dismissed court decisions on the annulment of an arbitral award and reversed it in favor of Siemens Turkey. Beyond the given dispute, the verdict marks a crucial cornerstone and strengthens arbitration in Turkey.

What will be the main focus for the company in the next 12 months and how do you intend to assist with this?

For Siemens, technology and digitalisation are major levers for growth. Our company will be focusing on high growth fields at the grid edge including distributed energy systems, smart buildings and energy storage, on digital end-to-end solutions as well as on enabling companies of every sector to integrate and digitalise their business processes.

By tying legal know-how with business savviness, the Legal team can bring in its expertise and advise on new business models from the outset. A priority for me is to see that our Legal team explores legal solutions always with the aim to enable sustainable business growth.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

Understand their business priorities and learn the business offerings and portfolio (technical side) as well as the figures (commercial side). Be mindful of and respect your business partners’ expertise and ask them for their explanations and guidance for you, which will also serve as foundation for your legal support.

Speak their language: This means not only to avoid “legalese”, but also to distill and to communicate complex issues in a simple, jargon-free language and succinct manner.

Tell your business partners the truth – speak up and neither play down nor exaggerate risks and issues.

What “legal tech” products do you currently utilise, and do you foresee implementing more of these in the near future?

We are using own Smart Templates and the “Legal Toolbox” with its Contract Analyst function, which was programmed by a Siemens in-house lawyer. The Legal Toolbox structures and simplifies the legal analysis of contracts, makes available relevant information such as provisions of the applicable law and searches the document automatically based on a defined checklist.

A Legal chatbot is currently being tested and expected to be globally rolled out for our business colleagues.

In Turkey, we will automate the handling of lawyers’ and court notifications as well as the handling and issuance of signature authorisations and powers of attorney.

Have any new laws, regulations or judicial decisions greatly impacted your company’s business or your legal practice?

Turkey’s recent data protection law and also other data privacy laws such as the GDPR of the EU led to an increasing demand from business side for more legal advice. It has a considerable impact on our legal practice. We are supporting our business by raising awareness of important aspects, advising on necessary measures and drafting the required contractual or other legal documents to ensure compliance with data protection laws.

What do you feel are the most effective techniques for getting the most out of external counsel, in terms of how to instruct them?

The best way of instructing outside counsel starts with sparing them the information overload. Regardless of the cost aspect, good external advisors prefer not to be flooded with all kind of unfiltered information. With their business proximity, in-house counsel are better positioned to compile and to structure all relevant information required for a high quality legal advice. Their domain know-how complements the external counsel’s legal expertise. They can identify and put the external advisors in contact with the right business people where needed.

Focus on: Lawyers – a rare species in future?

Does the cocktail of cost pressure, high workload and new (information) technologies endanger lawyers?

Probably yes if we stick to the classical understanding of a lawyer’s profile. Being confronted with profitability requirements or the urge to generate cost savings, companies will less likely cherish costly lawyers and legal services. New technologies offer opportunities to companies to cope with cost pressure if certain legal work can be performed cheaper, faster and more efficiently with new tools, automated processes and new legal service offerings. The decision on how to move forward is obvious – especially if the quality of the work and services can be maintained or even be increased.

In-house counsel cannot simply lay back. They are also concerned and not only law firms or external lawyers. Technology driven changes in the legal market will transform the world of lawyers, as we know it today. If the legal work of classical lawyers – be they in-house or not – can be replaced by smart tools, automated processes, or by innovative offerings of new legal service providers, then this will happen as sure as eggs is eggs.

These trends offer also opportunities to lawyers. If they embrace technology and hail alternative methods of working, they may even drive the change. But how? They should simply make use of new technolgies and offerings – especially for all kind of repetitive, routine or tasks that can potentially be automated. Their focus should primarily be on legal work where human interaction and distinctive capabilities are key or irreplaceable. This also means to develop skills and concepts in this area. At the end of the day, there will still be a need for lawyers, but their jobs may not be the same.