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Fatih, Istanbul · Monday–Friday
ISTeshirni Group

Residence and citizenship

Legal consultancy: our part and the lawyer's part

What costs people most in official matters is rarely the difficulty of the law — it is standing in the wrong queue: a file whose route is the court, carried from office to office for months; or a file settled at a single counter, paid for as though it were a case. So we begin with one question: which door does your file go to, and who is able to open it — an official office, or a lawyer.

What is hard for you, we can manage — God willing

Approximate duration
Depends on your case
What we establish first
Administrative or judicial
First consultation
Free
Languages we work in
Arabic · Turkish · English

Who is this service for?

  • You have received an official decision and do not know exactly what it says or what comes next.
  • You do not know whether your matter is handled at an administrative office or needs a lawyer from the start.
  • You want to understand how a procedure runs and what it requires, before starting it and paying its fees.
  • You have been handed a document in Turkish and want to read it in your own language before you sign.
  • Your procedure started and stalled, and you want to know exactly where it stopped and who can move it.
  • You have paid an office or a middleman and got nowhere, and you want to know whether what you were promised was possible at all, and who is actually able to carry it out.

What we do

  • We listen to the whole situation and place it: an administrative procedure handled at an office, or a matter whose route is the court?
  • We explain how the procedure runs, step by step: which office, which form, and in what order.
  • We read the decision or the official document to you in your language and tell you what it says and which authority issued it.
  • We draw up the document list for your case specifically, prepare it, and arrange translation and certification.
  • We book the appointments, fill in the forms, come with you and interpret at the counter.
  • We follow the file and tell you of every development; if the route turns out to be judicial we say so and refer you to a lawyer.

And what we do not do

  • We are not a law firm. We are a procedure follow-up office, and we present ourselves as nothing else, anywhere.
  • We do not represent you before any court, we do not attend hearings, and we do not run cases. Representation belongs to lawyers alone.
  • We do not draft a statement of claim or a judicial appeal, nor any document submitted to a court.
  • We do not give a legal opinion. We do not say “your right is safe” or “you will win” or “this contract is in your interest”; that is a legal judgement and it comes from a lawyer.
  • A translation tells you what is written, not what follows from it. We render the text of the document as it stands; what your signature does to you in law is a separate door, and it is the lawyer's.
  • We do not take on criminal matters — a report, a complaint, an investigation or a hearing. If a document from one reaches you we will read it to you and tell you it is not our door, and our part stops there.
  • We do not charge you for telling you that your file needs a lawyer. That answer is free, even when it is all you will hear from us.

Documents required for legal consultancy

This is the core list for most cases. Tick them off as you gather your papers — you can print this page and take it with you.

What we need to know before we can answer

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Why do we ask for the document itself and not a description of it? Because the name of a document settles nothing, while its text settles both the authority and the route: an administrative decision is handled at the office counter, a court document is handled only at a lawyer's desk. One clear photograph saves you weeks on the wrong route — and may save you the visit to us altogether.

How the procedure runs for legal consultancy

  1. You tell us what happened

    By voice note or in writing, in your own language. You do not need to order the story or reach for legal terms; ordering it is our job, not yours.

    our partWhatsApp or at the office

  2. We read the papers and place the matter

    We read what reached you and identify which authority it belongs to: an administrative office, a judicial body, or both. This placing is the most valuable thing you take away from the call.

    our part

  3. We tell you the route plainly

    If the route is administrative we walk you through it step by step and tell you which parts of it we can carry out. If it is judicial we say so and refer you to a lawyer, even when that means the office will not be working with you.

    our part

  4. Follow-up, if the route is administrative

    We prepare the papers, book the appointments, come with you and interpret, and follow the file until the result. If it turns judicial halfway through, we say so at that moment and not later.

    the authority’s partDepends on the relevant office's appointments

Cost: we separate what is paid to others from our fee

Paid to others

Official fees and the lawyer's fee

If your file follows an administrative route, its fees are paid to the office concerned. If the route is judicial, the lawyer's fee is paid to the lawyer directly. These amounts do not pass through us and we take nothing from them.

Paid to us

Our follow-up fee

For what we actually carry out: preparing the papers and arranging their translation and certification, booking appointments, filling in forms, accompaniment and interpretation, and following the file until the result. We tell you the full amount before we begin, and where there is no administrative work for us to do, there is no fee.

The first consultation is free whether you continue with us or not — including when our answer is “this is a file for a lawyer”. What people lose most in this area is not money but months spent at an office that was never able to do what was being asked of it. Learning that on the first day costs you nothing here.

What usually stops a file

What stops these files is usually not a refusal but a misreading of the words “legal consultancy”, which sends people to the wrong place. These are the ones we meet most often:

“The office can bring the case on my behalf”It cannot, and it is not permitted to. Bringing a case and representing you before a court is a lawyer's work alone under the Turkish law on advocacy; anyone promising you otherwise is promising what they do not hold.
“If it is an official document, it is an administrative procedure”Some official papers open a judicial route rather than an administrative one, and that is not visible in the shape of the document, nor in who handed it to you — only in its text. A document that looks routine can weigh more than it shows, and one that looks alarming can be settled at a single counter.
“A consultation means someone will tell me I am in the right”Anyone who tells you that before reading your file is selling you reassurance, not information. We do not pass judgement on your right; we tell you where it is examined and who is able to examine it.
“I will wait a little; perhaps it will resolve itself”Waiting is not a neutral position here: official periods run on their own whether you move or not, and no authority reminds you of them. Most of the files that reach us late were stopped by no refusal at all — only by months their owner spent waiting for news that comes only when someone goes and asks.
“I will start now and ask about the details later”Official matters are bound by periods and fees; starting on the wrong route consumes the period and the fee together, and can close a door that was open. One question before starting is cheaper than any correction afterwards.
“I sent the first page of the document”The first page usually carries the heading, while the authority, the route of review and the period sit in the rest of the document or on the back of it. If we only see half the document, we can only half tell you where it belongs — and a half answer sends you to the wrong door, confidently. Send the whole page, and the back of it if anything is written there.

The conditions, periods and fees in these matters change by official decision and differ by authority and by type of file; we verify them when we study your case and do not publish figures that may be out of date. And what concerns representation before a court stays with the lawyer, not with us.

Questions people ask about legal consultancy

Are you a law firm?
No. We are a procedure follow-up office, not a law firm. We explain the procedure, prepare its papers and follow it before the official offices. Representation before a court, legal opinion and the drafting of pleadings are a lawyer's work alone, and we refer you to one when that is the route.
Then what is your consultation worth if my case needs a lawyer?
You leave it with three things, even when our answer is “this is a file for a lawyer”: which authority issued your document, which route it opens, and what should be handed to the lawyer with it. Someone who walks into a lawyer's office with an ordered file saves their own time and the lawyer's. We tell you this at no charge; the decision after that is yours.
Do you refer us to a particular lawyer? And do you take anything for the referral?
We refer you to a lawyer and we take nothing for the referral. You may also choose your own lawyer; what matters to us is that you reach the party able to help you. And any lawyer can be checked: their registration is held by the bar association and you are entitled to ask about it.
I have received a decision in Turkish and I do not understand it — what do I do?
Send us a photograph of it before you do anything else. We read it and tell you what it says, which authority issued it, and which route it leads to. If the route is administrative we walk you through it; if it is judicial we say so immediately, because judicial matters are bound by periods that we have no power to extend.
Will you give me an opinion on a contract before I sign it?
We translate the contract so you know what is written in it, and we do not give you an opinion on its legal effect. The difference is not cosmetic: the first is a rendering of a text, the second is a legal judgement and it comes from a lawyer. If the contract puts a substantial obligation on you, the right step is to put it before a lawyer before signing.
What does the first consultation cost?
It is free, and it carries no condition that you continue with us. If it turns out your matter does not need us at all, you learn that without paying anything. A fee is only mentioned where there is administrative work for us to carry out, and it is stated in full before we begin.
My application was refused — what do I do now?
Send us the refusal decision in full before you take any other step. A refusal is not one door: some decisions are cured at the same office, or by a fresh application built on a different situation, while others are examined only before a judicial body and within a fixed period. Which of the two routes is yours can be read from the text of the decision alone — which is why we do not answer this question before we have read it, and the longer it waits, the less remains that can be done.
The papers I send you — where do they go?
What you send stays inside the office and is not shown to anyone outside the person working on your file. We do not publish cases and we do not use anyone's papers as an example, and we send nothing to a third party except at your request and for a purpose you know. And if we refer you to a lawyer, you are the one who hands them your papers, not us.

Related services

Residence permit in TürkiyeWhat stops most files is not the law but a missing document, or an application filed under a permit type that does not fit the case. So we start from your situation: which route is yours, what you actually need, and what gets checked before the appointment rather than after — then we follow it until the decision, and through to the card if it is approved.Sworn translation and notarisationA document is not accepted because it has been translated, but because it is in the form the authority receiving it asked for: some procedures accept a sworn translation on its own, others require notarisation. And a Syrian document carries no apostille: Syria is not a party to the Apostille Convention. No office can validly ask you for one. Its route is a chain of certification that ends in translation. So we start from one question: who will receive it, and how was the request worded?Registering a Turkish marriageWhat stops most marriage registration files is not a refusal but a document belonging to the other party: a civil record that still says “married”, an out-of-date certificate of no impediment, or a translation without notarisation. The registry reads the two situations together, not only the situation of whoever came to the office. So we start by reading both records before you prepare a single document, then arrange what the file actually needs — including the health report, which no one is exempt from — and follow it through until the family book is issued.Family reunification invitation“Family reunification” is one name for several routes, and what separates them is not the papers but the authority that receives them: the migration office inside Türkiye, or another country's consulate. A Syrian document is not read as it stands by either — Syria is not a party to the Apostille Convention, so certification runs through a chain of authorities rather than a single stamp. So we start from both parties' status and from the receiving authority, then prepare what is genuinely required rather than what is usually assumed.Turkish citizenship“Citizenship” is not one door: there is the ordinary route, the exceptional route through investment, the route through marriage, and citizenship by birth. And time under the temporary protection card does not open the ordinary one — that card gives no right to apply, and its years are not added to your years of residence. So we start from what you hold on paper: which door is open today, then we prepare the file and follow it with you until a decision is issued.

Not sure whether your matter needs a lawyer?

Send us what happened and whatever papers reached you, in one message. We will tell you which route your file belongs to — administrative or judicial — at no charge, even when the answer is that this file is not ours.

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