Lawyer Monthly Legal Awards 2022 7 USA 7 TURKEY/TÜRKIYE Ece Partner - Dayıoğlu Law Firm® Dayıoğlu Can you share a little about your journey into law? I was born into a family full of lawyers. Speaking literally, I am the seventh generation lawyer of my family. The family history goes back to the times of Ottoman Empire when my great-grandfather was a qadi under sharia. Following the proclamation of the Republic of Türkiye in 1923, the next generations became lawyers under civil law. I followed the footsteps of my ancestors, and now I am partnered with my father Cemal Sedat Dayıoğlu and my mother Oya Dayıoğlu at Dayıoğlu Law Firm®, for which we continue the tradition of attorneyship of our families. Since my childhood, being the only child of two eminent lawyers, I took an interest in the conversations between them, which were mainly on legal issues. Day by day it became more unbearable not to be part of this fascinating knowledge and experience. I therefore decided to become a lawyer myself, and I have never regretted my decision. From the beginning I felt lucky to take on the family heritage, to represent my family and to honour my family legacy in the best way I can. However, I always felt as if I was responsible for the ‘now’ and the ‘future’ of my family legacy. Everything was settled by my father: the experience, the knowledge, the team, the reputation, the office and the clients... in the end I understood that this left me even more room for broadening the horizon of Dayıoğlu Law Firm®, a role I have gladly taken on. I am the first in my family to be admitted to a foreign bar and to liaise our law firm with so many co-partner law firms across the world. INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION LAWYER OF THE YEAR Can you tell us about the highlights or standout achievements of your career to date? My greatest achievement is that I made my father – my mentor, my doyen – cry when I was admitted to the Paris Bar. But let me start from the beginning. I graduated from Galatasaray University Faculty of Law. It is top-tier law faculty in Türkiye which accepts students from among the 200 who were most successful during the National Exam for Admission to University. I did my master’s degree in Arbitration and International Commercial Law (Arbitrage et Droit du Commerce International) at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. I have another master’s degree (with merit) in International Dispute Resolution and Economic Law from Queen Mary University of London. I graduated with a thesis on ‘The Enforceability of Arbitral Awards in International Arbitration Involving States and State-Owned Entities: How to Be Ensured by the Arbitral Tribunal and to Be Resisted by the Sovereigns?’ Following this, I graduated from Istanbul Bilgi University with a master’s degree in Economics Law with the project ‘Anti-Dilution Protection Arising as a Result of a Malicious Increase of Capital in Joint-Stock Companies’. I also submitted my application for a scholarship for academic success, which did not exist between Türkiye and France. However, through the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French Minsitry of Foreign Affairs created a scholarship (without reimbursement) which did not exist only for me.
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