In-house legal recruiters in Istanbul

Koç Holding’s 2025 annual report is the industrial book. Combined revenue was TL 4,603.5 billion. Consolidated revenue was TL 2,757.3 billion, down 9 percent. Consolidated net profit was TL 22 billion. At year-end the holding, its subsidiaries, and its joint ventures employed 120,219 people: 83,745 in Türkiye and 36,474 abroad. Durable consumer goods were 38 percent of that employment, automotive 32 percent, and finance 13 percent. The report counts about 740 bank branches and names Yapı Kredi as the group’s public banking company. At 31 December 2025 the holding and its companies inside the BIST 100 were about 17 percent of BIST 100 market value. The registered office is Nakkaştepe Azizbey Sok. No:1, 34674 Üsküdar, Istanbul. The same report describes senior-executive pay as a fixed amount plus a performance amount, set against the market and the person’s grade. It does not print a lira figure for counsel. A search against the 120,219 is a search for the holding seat or for a company inside the group. Those are different employing entities, and the bar admission follows the entity that signs.

Sabancı Holding’s 2025 integrated report is the second book, and it is also an Istanbul address. Combined revenue was TL 1,624 billion. Combined EBITDA was TL 182 billion. At the end of 2025 the group had more than 63,000 employees in 18 countries. Headquarters are Sabancı Center, 4. Levent, 34330 Istanbul. The holding and 11 listed subsidiaries, a list that includes Akbank, were about 5 percent of Borsa Istanbul’s total market capitalization at year-end 2025. The 17 percent Koç figure and the 5 percent Sabancı figure use different denominators: BIST 100 market value in one report, total exchange market capitalization in the other. A compensation committee keeps them apart. The Sabancı report, like the Koç report, does not print a salary for the general counsel. Akbank is named as a listed subsidiary. The counsel who advises the bank and the counsel who advises the holding can be two admissions under Article 12.

Turkish Airlines is the operating company whose 2025 integrated report puts the registered office in the city: Genel Yönetim Binası, Yeşilköy Mahallesi, Havaalanı Caddesi No: 3/1, 34149 Bakırköy, Istanbul. Total revenue was USD 24.1 billion, up 6.3 percent. A highlights tile in the same report states an increase of 6.17 percent on the same USD 24.1 billion. The financial narrative, repeated in the report, is 6.3 percent. Passengers were 92.6 million. The fleet was 516 aircraft. The network was 356 destinations in 132 countries. At 31 December 2025 the company and its subsidiaries employed 66,649 people, up from 63,455 a year earlier. The narrative that includes joint ventures states 100,111 people. Those are two consolidations. The 66,649 is the group in the financial-statement note. The 100,111 includes the joint ventures the narrative adds. Ownership is 49.12 percent Türkiye Wealth Fund, one C share held by the Privatization Administration, and 50.88 percent listed on Borsa Istanbul. A counsel search has to say which of those employing companies will sign, because a joint-venture payroll is a different admission from the airline’s own.

The exchange that lists these groups is in the same city, and the issuer count is national. TÜYİD’s Borsa Trendleri Raporu for April through June 2026, issue 57, states that 566 companies traded on BIST All at 30 June 2026. The market-capitalization table, denominated in million Turkish lira, puts BIST All at 20,134,895, up 47 percent on the year. The same table in million U.S. dollars puts BIST All at 432,496, up 22 percent on the year. The president’s letter in that report rounds the lira figure and states a 43 percent increase. The table’s 47 percent is the cell the search uses. The letter’s 43 percent stays in the letter. Investors numbered 6.29 million, down 1 percent on the quarter. The free-float ratio was 43 percent and actual circulation was 30 percent. The count of 566 is the exchange. A listed-company brief in Istanbul is one of those issuers only when the employer’s own report places the seat in the city.

The attorney count is the bar, and Istanbul has two. The Union of Turkish Bar Associations published the roll at 31 December 2025 on 16 January 2026. The Istanbul Bar had 35,607 women and 31,856 men, 67,463 attorneys. The Istanbul 2nd Bar had 1,175 women and 2,804 men, 3,979 attorneys. Together the two rolls are 71,442. Nationwide the same table counts 206,678 attorneys, 100,015 women and 106,663 men. Ankara’s two bars, 26,206 and 3,078, are the next concentration, and they are a different city. A candidate who can do the Istanbul job is on one of the two Istanbul rolls, or is still to be admitted to one of them. Private-practice context for markets the firm publishes as city hubs is on international legal recruitment. The nearest published city hub is legal recruitment in Dubai, a different statute. Company-side method is on the 2026 in-house salary page. The head-of-legal band is on general counsel salary in 2026.

Across the 52 general counsel and chief legal officer searches since 2017, the shortlist arrives in 24 days on average and the accepted offer in a median of 11 weeks, with a range of 8 to 16. Senior and specialist counsel, a book of 87, reach a shortlist in 18 days and an accepted offer in 8 weeks. Deputy general counsel and head of legal, a book of 47, run to a 21-day shortlist and 10 weeks to offer. One Istanbul file inside the 52, a general counsel succession at a BIST-listed industrial holding, reached a shortlist of 3 on day 26. The accepted offer was in week 13. Week 13 sits inside the range of 8 to 16. The median on the 52 remains 11 weeks. Day 26 and week 13 are this file. They are the result of writing the offer so the roll and the notice were in it.

Article 17 of Labor Law No. 4857 is the notice floor for an indefinite-term employment contract. The contract ends two weeks after notice when service is under six months, four weeks when service is from six months to one and a half years, six weeks when service is from one and a half years to three years, and eight weeks when service is longer than three years. Those periods are minimums. The contract may set a longer one. The party who skips notice pays wages for the notice period. The employer may pay the notice wages in advance and end the contract at once. That payment leaves job security in place where job security applies. The eight weeks are the date the statute gives when the contract sets nothing longer.

Probation is Article 15. The parties may agree a trial period of at most two months. A collective agreement may extend it to four months. During the trial, either side may end the contract with no notice and no compensation. Wages for days worked remain due. The offer should say whether a trial period is in the contract.

Job security is Article 18. In a workplace of 30 or more workers, an employer who ends an indefinite-term contract of someone with at least six months’ seniority must have a valid reason in the person’s capacity or conduct, or in the needs of the enterprise, the workplace, or the work. The person who runs the whole enterprise, that person’s deputies, and the workplace manager who can hire and fire, sit outside Articles 18, 19, and 21. A general counsel who holds that executive brief is read against the exclusion. A counsel below the general counsel is read against the 30-worker and six-month tests. Koç’s 120,219, Sabancı’s more than 63,000, and the airline’s 66,649 clear the 30-worker threshold many times over. The question on those payrolls is the executive test, and it is decided on the contract of the person being hired.

Severance sits beside notice, and it is capped. Article 14 of Law No. 1475, still the operative severance rule, pays 30 days’ dressed gross wage for each full year of service when the contract ends for a reason the article lists. The Ministry of Labor’s June 2026 bulletin puts the ceiling at TL 64,948.77 for January through June 2026, up 20.45 percent from TL 53,919.68 in the first half of 2025. TÜRMOB, citing the Treasury circular of 2 July 2026, puts the ceiling at TL 73,729.87 for 1 July 2026 through 31 December 2026. A counsel whose monthly dressed wage is above the ceiling still accrues severance at the ceiling. The half-year in which the employment ends picks the cap. A resignation that the article does not list does not accrue the payment. The offer letter should say which end of the old contract the candidate is about to trigger.

A post-employment non-compete is Articles 444 and 445 of the Code of Obligations, No. 6098. It is in writing. It is valid when the job gave the employee access to customers, production secrets, or the employer’s business, and use of that information could seriously harm the employer. The clause has to be limited by place, time, and type of work. Except in special circumstances, the duration may not exceed two years. A judge may narrow an excessive clause, taking account of any consideration the employer undertook. A restriction the company will not limit by city and by type of work should come out of the draft before the candidate resigns. Inside a group of sister companies, that clause is the constraint on a move from one company to the next.

Where the permanent seat cannot wait on a contractual notice plus a bar notification, interim cover is a separate book. Across 60+ interim and fractional engagements since 2017, counted outside the 400+ placements (230+ in-house), the median from first call to start is 7 days. One published file, an interim general counsel for a Series C fintech in San Francisco, was live on day 6. That is cover while the permanent search runs. It is described on interim and fractional legal talent. The roll entry remains a filing for the permanent seat.

Day 26 and week 13 are one Istanbul file inside the 52. The 11 weeks are the firm-wide general counsel median from signed brief to accepted offer. Notice and the bar notification run after acceptance.

One of the 52 general counsel and chief legal officer searches was a succession at a BIST-listed industrial holding in Istanbul. The shortlist of 3 reached the board on day 26. The accepted offer was in week 13. The general counsel of that holding later said: “The offer named the bar and the week the notice actually ended. That was the draft the board could sign.”