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Former W&C Turkey MP Meltem Akol Reveals Post-W&C Plans

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In an exclusive conversation with CEE Legal Matters, Meltem Akol — the Executive Partner of the Akol Law Firm, which until very recently was White & Case’s associated firm in Istanbul — has explained her reasons for leaving W&C and her excitement at her plans going forward.

Akol has spent all of her professional career at White & Case, which she joined immediately after graduating from Istanbul University in 1991. In 1998, following the departure of Executive Partner Emre Derman, the then Derman Duren Akol Law Firm was renamed Duren Akol, with Aydin Duren as Executive Partner. When Duren then also left in January 2009 to become Head of Legal at Turkey’s Garanti Bank, Akol took over sole stewardship. She left White & Case in mid-September, 2015, and White & Case announced on September 15 that the Istanbul office would be led going forward by Zeynep Cakmak (the former Executive Partner of White & Case’s associated firm in Ankara) and Istanbul-based Banking/Finance Partner Guniz Gokce. 

When asked why she felt the time was right to leave White & Case, Akol said, “for the last couple of years I’ve been wondering how I wanted to spend the second half of my career … [because] if I wanted to do something different, I should do it now, or I should accept being part of an international law firm environment for the rest of my career." Ultimately, she said, she concluded that, "I still have the stamina, and the desire, and the excitement for this profession, so I thought now was a good time."

For the time being she’s continuing to practice under the Akol Law Firm name, but she plans to rebrand at the end of the year, when she will formally partner with 3 other high-profile Turkish lawyers — whose identities she declined to reveal for the time being — in a 4-person partnership. She has big plans for the new entity, which she expects to grow quickly to 15 lawyers in 2016, and then up to 30 lawyers in 2017.

And despite the recent political uncertainty in Turkey, Akol is optimistic about her prospects. “I’ve been doing this for the past 24 years,” she says, "and it hasn’t been steady and stable for those 24 years. As long as it’s a realistic business model, and it provides a high quality of service, which is reasonably priced, I think there will always be a buyer for these services."

She insists she left White & Case on good terms, and she explains the change in characteristically modest terms. "You know me, I’m a low-profile person, and I’d rather keep it that way. I’d rather focus on the work.”

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