Getting
Oriented
BY IRENE PLAGIANOS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY METIN ONER
The booming
Turkish legal
market is attracting
more and more
international firms.
But to open in
Istanbul, you need
the right partner.
Ayse Yüksel has spent much of her life outside of her native Istanbul—starting
with high school in England, then college, law school, and a law
firm career in the United States—but she never lost touch with her
homeland. When Yüksel joined Chadbourne & Parke as a partner in
2004, she immediately launched a Turkey practice. For the past seven
years, she led the firm’s 20-lawyer Turkey, Middle East, and North
Africa (MENA) group from Dubai and New York. That changed in
September, when Chadbourne became the latest international firm to
put out a shingle in Istanbul.
“I’ve been championing Turkish work for years,” says Yüksel. “Now,
with the market booming, it seems I’m not the only one.”
Chadbourne arrived on the heels of Clifford Chance, which
launched in April. The Magic Circle firm sits across a busy high-
way from DLA Piper, which arrived in June 2010. Kinstellar, an
Eastern European–based Linklaters spin-off, and Vienna’s Schönherr
also opened in 2010. They joined SNR Denton, along with French
firms Salans and Gide Loyrette Nouel. And then there’s White &
