BRIDGING BARRIERS: CONVERSATIONS ACROSS LEGAL CULTURES  

An Oral History Series by Emails to a Young Lawyer
Curated & Presented by Can Yildirim
Interview No. 10

GUEST BIO

Learn more about the Bridging Barriers series, read my reflections on the previous interviews, and watch their recordings HERE.

During my conversation with Dr. Gizem Halis-Kasap, I found myself returning to a question that has lingered throughout this series: once a lawyer becomes comfortable moving between legal systems, what comes next? While earlier conversations traced the arc of said transition and more recent iterations introduced the discipline of calibration, Gizem’s experience brought a sharper answer into focus. It revealed that beyond adjusting between systems where differences are readily apparent, practitioners across borders sometimes must exercise judgment when structures are less stable, expectations shift without notice, and boundaries remain obscured. This idea builds on what Ayse’s story revealed about calibration, but further suggests that even calibration falls short when systems themselves evade sharp definitions. Gizem’s experience took shape in such contexts.

Introducing Dr. Gizem Halis-Kasap

Gizem began her legal education within the structured logic of civil law and gradually moved into the more interpretive, dialogic environment of common law; this is a transition we have seen very often. She is a lecturer in private international law and a lawyer licensed in both Istanbul and New York. Her academic path, from Istanbul University to Penn State for her LL.M., and later to Wake Forest for her doctorate, traces both a change in place and a reconfiguration of how she has engaged with legal thinking. Her work, particularly in arbitration and comparative law, sits at the intersection this series seeks to explore, as these fields demand continuous movement across legal systems, interpretive frameworks, and institutional expectations. 

What stayed with me most, beyond the impressiveness of her trajectory, was the clarity with which she described a deeper shift. She described the transformation into a global lawyer as a broad relearning of how to think, how to communicate, and ultimately, how to understand the law itself.

Law as Method: Codes and Systems

One of the most illuminating moments in our conversation came when Gizem described her first encounters with concepts like consideration in U.S. contract law. She recounted that what she first noted as a technical rule soon revealed itself to be something more. She found in such a seemingly innocuous concept a reflection of underlying cultural and economic assumptions embedded within the legal system. 

In civil law systems, professionals are conditioned to approach law as a structured body of knowledge. Law is ultimately a body of material to be learned, organized, and applied. In the U.S., Gizem found, law functions as a system through which constructed through argument, precedent, and policy reasoning. She concluded through her experience that to truly engage with another legal system, one must reorient their legal logic.

This insight harmonizes with a theme that has surfaced across this series. Like Aysın’s “two toolkits” and Zeynep’s shift from “knowing the code” to “thinking about why”, Gizem’s experience once again highlights the degree to which legal education across systems is transformative.

Learning to Speak Step by Step

In Gizem’s story, language proved to be the very topography that she had to navigate. She described struggling not with legal expression but with basic fluency as she started her journey. Her account captures in its beginning with limitations and flourishing through effort a sequence of development.

First, one fights to struggle with survival; the challenge of seeking the words contextualizes each spoken sentence. Then, one builds competence, seeking now to express ideas; the scramble for the most available word gets supplanted by a process of finding the word best capturing intended meaning. Finally, one faces the need for refinement; words now need to, beyond carrying the right denotation and connotation, do so specifically and precisely for the culture in which they are heard.

This layered process extends something Murat described as “speaking twice” but pushes it further. In Gizem’s account, the ultimate challenge transcends bilingualism. Her emphasis on culturally appropriate expression and writing across legal contexts echoes Bukem’s lesson that clarity, rather than ornamentation, defines effectiveness in common-law environments.

Beyond Advantage: Biculturalism as Function

Across this series, many guests have described biculturalism as a strength. Gizem provided an excellent example demonstrating how this strength operates in practice.

She recalled her experience in a U.S. law firm, working on a matter involving non-U.S. parties. Her contribution went beyond legal analysis, providing an interpretive capacity that her team would have otherwise lacked. She clarified unspoken expectations and resolved misunderstandings that were not immediately apparent.

This example reflects a recurring theme from Sezgi and Aysın’s respective experiences. Global lawyers function as legal experts, but often also have to serve as translators of context. In this sense, biculturalism becomes a professional capability.

The Global Lawyer as Educator

Gizem’s reflections culminate in her role as a legal educator. Here, her perspective expands beyond her own journey and into that which forms future lawyers. Gizem defines her role in terms that go beyond national boundaries. She describes herself as someone who 1) bridges legal systems, 2) anticipates misunderstandings, and 3) teaches students to think across contexts rather than within them.

Her advice, honed through her serving as an educator, is clear: experience trumps exposure. To understand a legal system, one must live within it, through its classrooms, expectations, and ways of reasoning.

What I’m Taking With Me

Earlier interviews in this series demonstrated that global lawyering requires learning new systems. This conversation sharpened the precision of that lesson. Global lawyering requires knowing when and how to shift between them, even when the boundaries of those systems are not clearly visible.

For aspiring lawyers, Gizem’s message is both demanding and encouraging. She encourages us to build foundations deeply and in sequence. She challenges us to develop language skills deliberately. And, above all, she reminds us that law is not fixed but rather operates as shaped by the cultures contextualizing it.

In the end, bridging legal systems requires clarity, intention, and judgment, even when the path itself is not fully defined.