BRIDGING BARRIERS: CONVERSATIONS ACROSS LEGAL CULTURES  

An Oral History Series by Emails to a Young Lawyer
Curated & Presented by Can Yildirim
Interview No. 4

GUEST BIO

 

Learn more about the Bridging Barriers series HERE.

Read my reflections on the first interview and watch its recording HERE.

Read my reflections on the second interview and watch its recording HERE.

Read my reflections on the third interview and watch its recording HERE.

 

Introducing Murat Ersin

 

The first three voices in this series, Sezgi, Bukem, and Aysın, each shared the perspective of internationally practicing lawyers who had already crossed borders as they have all completed Turkish law degrees, pursued LL.M.s in the United States, and gone on to build global practices.

Murat’s story reminds us that bridging barriers does not only happen after a career has been established. Sometimes, it happens in real time. After graduating from Koç University Law School in 2022, he moved directly to Boston to begin his J.D. at Suffolk University, committing to living through the transition. He has since studied two complete legal systems back-to-back in two languages and across two traditions, while still at the very beginning of his professional path.

This perspective is crucial for Bridging Barriers, a series that explores what it means to become a lawyer across languages, borders, and legal traditions. Murat, through his experience and introspection, offers one answer: it means living the bridge while you are still building it. His reflections reveal how the challenges of cross-border lawyering are not obstacles to be shed, but opportunities and tools for growth that actively shape the kind of lawyer he is becoming.

 

Justice as Reliability—and as Starfish

 

In reflecting on the impact of culture on perceptions of justice and when asked what justice meant to him, Murat paused, answering, “For me, justice is treating everyone equally and having some sort of reliability on the law: on codes, precedent, due process. It’s the idea that the law can be trusted.”

But he also recognized its limits, admitting that injustice will always exist. To capture his philosophy, he told the “starfish story.” One person cannot save all starfish hypothetically stranded on the beach, but saving each one matters, and it is this commitment to repeated individual action that culminates in a broader impact. Thus, for Murat, justice is less about grand theory and more about persistence: making the law work better in each concrete moment.

 

Maturity and Purpose in Two Systems

 

In Turkiye, students typically begin studying law at the age of 17 or 18. In the U.S., J.D. students arrive later, often with families, prior careers, or debts to repay. This age gap shapes outlook: “In Turkiye, people often don’t yet know what they want to do. In the U.S., people come for a purpose. They’ve made a sacrifice and they’re determined to get somewhere.”

The comparison highlights how life stage shapes legal education in what is learned and how it is pursued.

 

Speaking Twice

 

Although Koç Law School exposed him to professors trained in the U.S., adapting to the Socratic method in a second language remained daunting.

“When my classmates worried about getting the answer right, I was thinking first about forming a correct sentence and then about the answer. It was double, if not triple, the stress.”

Over time, he reframed this struggle as a strength: a reminder that navigating the law in a second language is less a liability and more an accomplishment. In this sense, Murat’s experience illustrates the very heart of Bridging Barriers: becoming a lawyer across borders is not a finished state but a process of learning to speak twice, to think twice, and to grow through the very challenges that define the journey.

 

Hierarchy, Formality, and Cultural Fluency

 

In Turkiye, the professor–student relationship often felt formal, even distant to Murat, while in the U.S., he found professors to be approachable partners and humble judges. The adjustment was not easy, as he admitted that “even when they say, ‘call me Steve,’ it still feels strange.” Still, it became part of learning cultural fluency in navigating respect and informality across contexts.

 

Networking as Hidden Curriculum

 

Murat’s sharpest insight was about networking. In the U.S., internships typically begin immediately, and relationships are continually cultivated, in great contrast to the delayed schedule in Turkiye.

“You never know who you’ll meet; even in the elevator, you might run into a judge. That’s why I’m always prepared: clean-shaven, blazer on, ready to make a good impression.”

Networking, for him, became not just a tactic but a professional language of its own —one that every young lawyer must learn to speak. In that sense, his story again reflects the spirit of Bridging Barriers. While still a student, he is already practicing the art of moving between systems, demonstrating that even the smallest gestures of preparation and presence are part of building the bridge in real-time.

 

JD vs. LL.M.—Different Doors, Different Commitments

 

Murat is candid about the trade-offs, as while the J.D. is longer, harder, and more expensive, it opens more and broader doors in the U.S. market. In contrast, the LL.M. offers exposure without the same professional integration. His advice is pragmatic: align your choice of degree with your long-term goals and weigh the cost of the commitment honestly.

 

Final Thought

 

As our conversation closed, Murat summed up the lesson of his journey: “Don’t let the differences hold you back. Being bilingual, multicultural, and trained in two legal systems is never a liability; it’s your advantage. Be proud of where you come from and keep building who you are.”

 

Why Murat’s Story Matters for Bridging Barriers

 

This series asks what it means to become a lawyer across languages, borders, and legal traditions, and Murat clearly provides us with one answer: it means living the bridge while you are still building it. His perspective reminds us that the challenges of cross-border lawyering, linguistic, cultural, and systemic, are not obstacles to be overcome once and for all, but first opportunities and subsequently tools for growth that shape the kind of lawyer one becomes.

In Murat’s reflections, we are offered a glimpse not at a finished career but a beginning rich with possibility. His story reminds us that the making of a global lawyer is a continual practice of building while crossing: of learning to think, speak, and act in more than one legal language at once. That unfinishedness is precisely what makes his voice belong in the archive of becoming.