The 1928 Istanbul Bar Association Diary: Attorney Professional Ethics and 50 Precepts

The legacy of a profession is not limited to the gowns, books and files passed on to the next generation. Its real inheritance is knowing which pressure one will not yield to, which interest will not make one change one’s word, and which person’s right one will not leave alone. In the legal profession this inheritance is called knowledge, labour, independence, conscience and courage.

The fifty professional and ethical precepts in the 1928 Istanbul Bar Association Diary build this inheritance into everyday working life. They remind the attorney to read, to research, to be reliable, to look after colleagues and, when necessary, to act with courage. Among the days of the calendar they leave a memory of the values with which the profession is to be carried on.

Reading this memory today does not mean treating every sentence written in the past as a permanent rule. Some precepts speak directly to the present; others must be assessed within the language, institutional understanding and social conditions of their time. Fidelity to a historical text requires conveying it without changing its meaning and honestly showing the differences from today’s law.

This article presents all fifty precepts, in their original order, in modern Turkish. It then addresses their present counterparts: courage in defence, relations with judges and prosecutors, solidarity among colleagues, loyalty to the client and professional labour. Historical precepts and rules currently in force are kept separate.

What is the 1928 Istanbul Bar Association Diary?

According to legal-historical research by Tugay Aydın, the diary prepared by the Istanbul Bar Association for 1928 was printed in 1927 at the Istanbul Hilal Printing House. The research presents this 372-page work as the first attorney diary in Türkiye. In the diary, printed in the old script, the calendar section appears together with professional reference information; the fifty precepts are placed at the ends of the Friday entries in the calendar. A study containing a transcription of the historical text notes that the author of the precepts is unknown.

For this reason it would be wrong to present the precepts as the personal work of a particular jurist, or to attribute them to the person who prepared another part of the diary. The description “the first attorney diary in Türkiye” is used here as the finding of the research cited.

The diary’s value today lies in bringing a working calendar and professional ethics together on the same page. An attorney who notes a hearing date is also reminded with what preparation and what character to enter that hearing. Professional ethics ceases to be a ceremonial statement recalled once a year and becomes part of daily work.

The fifty professional and ethical precepts for attorneys

The following is a modern Turkish rendering that keeps the order and basic meaning of the historical text; it is not a letter-for-letter transcription of the original. In particular, precepts 17, 22, 28, 29, 34, 42, 45 and 50 should be read together with the explanations below. The period-bound provisions in the list are not presented as currently binding professional rules.

1. The attorney becomes one of the most honourable figures in society to the extent that they serve as an aide to right and justice.
2. The attorney is resolute and stern against oppression, and respectful and grateful toward justice.
3. There is no equal to the joy and satisfaction felt by an attorney who wins a just case.
4. Removing the common view that sees the attorney as an instrument of trickery and of distorting the truth is the duty of all colleagues.
5. Attorneys who have legal knowledge take their place in the front ranks of the intellectuals.
6. What is more worthy of pride than guiding and mediating toward right and justice?
7. Failing to recognise the value of an attorney’s mental and physical labour is a grave lack of appreciation.
8. The attorney grieves less over losing a case than over failing to make their voice heard and failing to explain what they wish to explain.
9. When the research an attorney conducts on the subject of a case is not valued, it is a great disappointment.
10. Attorneys who proceed on the path of right within the main lines of the laws, and who also show others the way, are fighters deserving of respect.
11. In a country without attorneys, and in a case heard without an attorney, the guarantee of right and justice remains significantly incomplete.
12. The attorney must be gentle, humble, patient and diligent and, when necessary, very brave.
13. An attorney who loses their credibility endangers their professional standing. The quality least befitting an attorney is charlatanism.
14. While hearing a case, the attorney must also remember the responsibility of moral guidance.
15. Attorneys are a whole bound together by solidarity, because they are fellow travellers on the same road.
16. An attorney must not show hostility toward, or create obstacles to, the personal rights of another attorney.
17. The attorney must not forget that the bond of colleagueship is stronger than the mandate relationship.
18. A discussion between two attorneys conducted with courtesy and at a decent level is a valuable exchange of thought.
19. Attorneys who enter the courtroom as counsel for opposing parties and leave it on friendly terms have no right, for the sake of material gain, to hurt the other’s heart and dignity.
20. As long as the law is their support, the attorney must not be daunted by anything.
21. Despair and dejection must not take hold of the attorney’s professional will.
22. Failing to make an effort to earn the respect the profession deserves through one’s own character and labour is to exhaust one’s professional standing.
23. The small chair on which the attorney sits facing the seat of justice, and the support on which they lean, are of the value of a lofty pulpit on the path of right.
24. The black gown on the attorney’s back is a symbol of the protection of right; it is more valuable than many splendid garments.
25. When asserting a right or defending a victim or an innocent person, a few reasoned and persuasive words are more useful and effective than many ornate speeches.
26. In a client’s matter the attorney relies on two guides: law and conscience.
27. When putting on the gown, the attorney is obliged to shed the influence of personal feelings.
28. The attorney should show respect for the Turkish judge, who in the language of the period was exalted by sacrifice and uprightness; they should facilitate the judge’s task, not make it harder.
29. Advocacy is regarded as the highest rank in the field of justice; after the presidency of the high judiciary, the chair in the attorney’s office is cited.
30. A researching attorney does not rely on their knowledge alone; they return again and again to sources and authorities.
31. An attorney who wishes to advance in the profession follows the developments and publications of Western law.
32. The attorney’s spiritual nourishment is reading, reading and reading.
33. A good attorney knows that unnecessary prolixity and excessive detail in legal cases can do more harm than good.
34. The attorney who makes a habit of writing pages of petitions must respect the time of judges under heavy workloads, especially the judges of the high judiciary. The historical precept stresses that sometimes two concise paragraphs may be enough.
35. The attorney does not accept every case put before them without examining and considering it, even if they need the work.
36. Taking on an excessive number of cases may weaken the attorney’s professional value and the quality of their labour.
37. The attorney first examines a case presented to them for capacity; whether the claim is directed at the correct party; whether the action is admissible; limitation and preliminary steps; jurisdiction and competence; the likely answers and defences; and the evidence and means of proof. They put questions about these to the client.
38. A case is not a letter of intent to be left to chance or a lottery ticket; it requires sincere and serious work.
39. Just as greed is bad for the attorney, accepting whatever is offered without regard to the return on one’s labour is equally devaluing.
40. Before complaining about the disorder of court clerks’ offices, we should arrange the files and records of our own office.
41. The competitive spirit praised in commerce must not be carried over in the same way into the attorney’s profession.
42. A good attorney wishes to win their case mostly on the strong points relating to the substance of the matter; they do not rest content with relying only on defects of form.
43. Attorneys who bring the parties closer and secure their reconciliation deserve appreciation that may even exceed that of obtaining a judgment after years of litigation.
44. Among the things that tire and distress the attorney is waiting in the courthouse corridors; and among those that distress them most is being unable to make their voice heard.
45. In the historical text’s comparison, one hopes that just as muftis who issued ignorant rulings and taught evasive routes have passed away, no persons of that kind will emerge from among attorneys.
46. Gravity and dignity are qualities the attorney should maintain everywhere.
47. Law is a vast sea; it is not possible to encompass its whole from beginning to end. The attorney should aim to deepen their knowledge and specialise in a particular field.
48. Sincere advice to young colleagues is that they learn at least one Western language.
49. An attorney should not pass another attorney without greeting them when they meet.
50. The historical text takes pride in the fact that the Code of Obligations counts attorneys among the working class: labour is the valuable element of the age, and attorneys are labourers of ideas. This increases the pride felt.

Law and conscience: what does courage in defence require today?

The second, twelfth, twentieth and twenty-sixth precepts, read together, reveal a strong professional stance: to be resolute against injustice, to show courage when necessary, to rely on legal grounds and to keep conscience alive.

This stance is especially important today. In a mindset where the power of the state is valued above the rights of the individual, where objecting to authority is seen as disturbance, pursuing rights as causing trouble and defence as making proceedings harder, an attorney’s silence is not neutral. It may open the way for unlawfulness to take root. Independent defence keeps a person a rights-holder in the face of public power.

The expression “advocacy is not practised out of fear” describes a professional responsibility. The attorney also thinks of their livelihood, family, safety and future. Courage does not mean disregarding these altogether. It means not deciding whether a justified objection should be raised solely by looking at its possible personal cost. Yet no young colleague should be left alone to bear danger in order to prove the profession’s existence. The solidarity of professional organisations and public protection are the conditions under which courage can be sustained.

Articles 2, 13 and 36 of the Constitution of the Republic of Türkiye connect the rule of law, the guarantees of fundamental rights and the right to seek justice. The concept of independent defence in Article 1 of the Attorneyship Law No. 1136 (Avukatlık Kanunu) gains meaning within this framework. An attorney’s legal objection addressed to public authority is part of carrying out their duty. The Constitution and the Attorneyship Law are the texts to be relied on in the legal assessment of the historical precept today.

Conscience cannot justify arbitrariness

Naming law and conscience together does not mean placing the attorney’s personal understanding of what is right in place of the law. Conscience prevents indifference to the consequences of one’s actions; law makes the reasons, methods and limits of defence reviewable. Producing unlawful evidence, influencing a witness or altering the truth cannot be legitimised by invoking a good purpose.

Loyalty to the law also does not mean accepting every practice as correct. The attorney may debate the lawfulness of a measure, the proportionality of a restriction and the reasoning of a decision, and may use the proper remedies. Questioning a rule’s relationship with constitutional guarantees is not stepping outside the law. Professional courage requires being able to construct the legal language and basis of an objection.

Limits between historical precepts and today’s professional rules

Repeating every sentence of the diary as if it were a current rule would do injustice both to the historical text and to today’s law. To preserve the professional value of the precepts, the following distinctions must be explained.

Solidarity among colleagues and loyalty to the client

The seventeenth precept regards the bond of colleagueship as stronger than the mandate relationship. As a period expression, it cannot be applied today as a ranking of priorities that allows the client’s right to be sacrificed for the sake of a colleague. Solidarity acquires meaning through not being hostile to opposing counsel, preserving personal dignity and protecting the common safeguards of the profession.

An attorney may not abandon a necessary objection so as not to disturb a colleague, nor may they disclose a client’s secret on the ground of colleagueship. Likewise, taking on the client’s anger and attacking opposing counsel personally is not loyalty. The provisions of the Professional Rules of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) (Meslek Kuralları) on independence, loyalty, conflicts of interest and the keeping of secrets should be read together. The text of the professional rules with notes on recent amendments shows the legal basis of these limits.

Respect for judges and objection to unlawfulness

The twenty-eighth precept reflects the idealised image of the judge of its time. This idealising expression cannot be taken as a finding that every concrete decision is correct, every practice impartial or every official immune from criticism. Facilitating the judge’s task does not mean giving up the opportunity to defend.

Article 17 of the TBB Professional Rules is based on mutual respect in relations with judges and prosecutors. The attorney’s ability to make statements, discuss evidence and put forward a legal objection serves the healthy functioning of proceedings. The measure of professional courtesy cannot be failing to say what the law requires.

The comparison of the attorney with high offices in the twenty-ninth precept should be read with the same historical awareness. It is an expression that elevates the dignity of the profession. Under today’s law it cannot be concluded that advocacy is a formal rank following the presidency of the high judiciary. The value of defence rests on its independent function, not on a ranking of offices.

Writing briefly and defending completely

The thirty-third and thirty-fourth precepts criticise purposeless prolixity. It does not follow from them that every petition should be limited to two paragraphs. A file may require only a short legal explanation; in another file, a detailed assessment of numerous pieces of evidence, facts and legal questions may be unavoidable.

The measure lies first in function, and only then in length. Each paragraph is expected to answer a question, explain a piece of evidence or justify a request. Cutting the legal basis for the sake of brevity, or repeating the same thought to appear comprehensive, weakens the defence. Concise expression is not a reduction of thought but its completion.

Procedural safeguards are not formal games

The original meaning of the forty-second precept is to attend to the strong points relating to substance rather than conducting the case only on defects of form. Reading it as “using procedural rights is unethical” is a mistake. Time and opportunity to defend, the assistance of counsel, the lawful obtaining of evidence and trial before an impartial court are basic guarantees.

In criminal proceedings, procedure includes the concrete protective tools of human rights. Objecting to evidence obtained unlawfully, or asserting that the right to defence has been restricted, is not evading the substance of the right. The defence and evidence provisions of Law No. 5271, Code of Criminal Procedure (CMK) require the historical expression to be read together with current law.

Case selection, workload and the limits of peace

The thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth precepts remind us that professional quality cannot be measured by the number of cases. A large number of files may create risks for the client where the attorney lacks sufficient time and organisation. However, taking on a difficult case or one that attracts public reaction cannot be deemed contrary to professional ethics for that reason alone. The right of defence extends to the person who is not liked.

The idea of peace in the forty-third precept values resolving a dispute while taking account of the client’s rights and will. Not every criminal case is suitable for conciliation (uzlaştırma), and in every dispute reaching agreement may not be the right solution. Particularly where there is pressure, violence or a marked inequality of power, the person’s safety and will cannot be pushed aside simply to secure an agreement. The value of peace does not rest on giving up rights under pressure.

Intellectual labour and workers’ status

The expression “labourers of thought” in the fiftieth precept conveys respect for the attorney’s labour. However, the reference in the precept to the Code of Obligations cannot lead to the conclusion that all attorneys are today legally regarded as employees. The attorney’s working relationship and legal status are assessed according to the conditions of the concrete relationship.

Under the current Turkish Code of Obligations, agency is regulated as a separate type of contract; Article 506 addresses the agent’s duty of loyalty and care. The text of the law as adopted by the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye (TBMM) makes this conceptual distinction visible. The historical precept’s emphasis on labour can be preserved, but no automatic status consequence can be attached to it under today’s labour law.

Explaining the language of the period when passing it on

The moral guidance in the fourteenth precept should not be understood as judging the client or ruling over their personal life. Its present professional equivalent is setting limits on unlawful requests, honestly explaining the options and respecting the person’s will to decide.

The idea of dignity in the twenty-second precept should not be narrowed to “increasing the potential power of the profession”. An attorney’s professional reputation is something earned through their own labour and conduct. The old seating and support devices in the twenty-third precept are part of a symbolic expression; they are not a description of today’s courtroom order.

The historical religious comparison in the forty-fifth precept should not be repeated as an assessment of today’s religious officials. Its professional equivalent is to avoid giving guidance out of ignorance and to refrain from treating evasive methods as skill. The call in the thirty-first and forty-eighth precepts to learn Western law and languages can today be read within a broad horizon of comparative law, foreign-language skills and contact with different legal cultures.

What is handed down to young attorneys?

The most valuable inheritance passed to younger generations is, before any ready-made sentences, a way of working and behaving. The young attorney who sees how a senior reads a file, how they research a point they do not know, how they explain a hard truth to a client and how they stand before authority learns professional ethics by living them.

The first element of this inheritance is honesty toward knowledge. A subject not yet learned is not presented as if it were known; an unverified decision or quotation is not placed in a petition. A text generated by artificial intelligence does not replace the attorney’s own checking of sources. The call for research and reading in the thirtieth and thirty-second precepts carries the same weight for the lawyer working with new tools.

The second element is responsibility toward the person. The client is not a unit of case volume or a means of professional visibility. Professional secrecy is protected, the labour invested can be explained, and the person’s fear is not turned into a tool of economic or emotional pressure. The attorney’s persuasive power should first serve the client’s understanding of what they accept and what they risk.

The third element is independence in the face of power. This power does not come only from a state office; it may also come from a wage relationship, a large firm, political circles or public opinion. Independence means keeping the same professional standard under different pressures. The UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers likewise emphasise that an attorney performing a lawful duty must not be identified with the client and must not be left under pressure.

The fourth element is protecting the dignity of colleagues. Merely having a trainee carry files, sharing the workload without including them in the thinking, or regarding seniority as unquestionable authority narrows the professional inheritance. The young attorney should be allowed to ask questions, to build different reasoning and to discuss their mistakes with confidence. A profession can remain independent only to the extent that it raises independent people.

The fifth element is combining courage with method. Anger at injustice may be a starting point; the professional contribution lies in turning that anger into a verified fact, an open reason, a legal claim and persistent follow-up. The most lasting lesson an experienced attorney can leave a young colleague is not only which word to say and at what cost, but also how to ground that word soundly.

Frequently asked questions

Are the 50 precepts of the 1928 diary binding today?

These precepts are a historical text on the profession and its ethics. They cannot be applied directly as a provision in force in today’s legal practice, as a statute, or as text of the TBB Professional Rules. Today’s legal assessment is made through the relevant legislation and the professional rules in force.

Who wrote the fifty precepts?

The research by Tugay Aydın examining the diary states that the author of the precepts is unknown. For that reason they have not been presented as belonging to any specific person.

Does solidarity among colleagues come before the client’s right?

The seventeenth historical precept cannot today be turned into a general rule of priority in this way. Respecting a colleague’s dignity and carefully defending the client’s legitimate interest must be considered together. Solidarity does not remove the rules on confidentiality and conflicts of interest.

Does respect for a judge mean not objecting to a decision?

No. Mutual respect and reasoned legal objection are possible together. Discussing a decision through the lawful remedies is within the role of the defence. Respect cannot be interpreted as giving up the right to defend.

What professional legacy does the diary leave to young attorneys?

A commitment to knowledge, intellectual labour, conscience, solidarity and the courage of independent defence. This legacy is not limited to memorising historical sayings; it lives in the preparation of files, in the relationship with the client and in professional conduct in the face of authority.

The profession’s legacy lives in everyday conduct

What carries the 1928 diary into the present is more than the appeal of an old book. It reminds us that an attorney should not become arrogant because of their knowledge, should make their labour visible, should treat colleagues humanely and should keep their legal word under pressure. Each generation tests this legacy anew under its own conditions.

Today the task before the defence is not to diminish a person’s rights to suit the expectations of the state, the majority or powerful circles. The attorney’s gown is a responsibility that reminds them they have taken up this task. The dignity of the gown is protected by the daily conduct of the person who wears it.

The legacy that must be handed down to younger generations is this: keep renewing knowledge; take labour seriously; protect human dignity; do not surrender a just word to fear; and keep professional ethics ahead of personal gain.

Sources and legal bases

1. Tugay Aydın, “Türkiye'nin İlk Avukat Ajandası İstanbul Barosu Ajandası 1928 ve Avukatlara Meslekî-Ahlâkî Öğütler”, Türk Hukuk Tarihi Araştırmaları, no. 30, Autumn 2020. Article record · Full text and transcription of the historical precepts.
2. Constitution of the Republic of Türkiye — Constitutional Court, in particular Articles 2, 13 and 36.
3. Law No. 1136, Attorneyship Law (Avukatlık Kanunu) — Union of Turkish Bar Associations, in particular Articles 1, 34 and 36.
4. TBB Professional Rules (Meslek Kuralları) — text with amendment notes published by the Zonguldak Bar Association, in particular the provisions on independence, mutual respect, loyalty, conflicts of interest, professional secrecy and trainee education.
5. Law No. 5271, Code of Criminal Procedure — Ministry of Justice, on defence and evidentiary safeguards.
6. Law No. 6098, Turkish Code of Obligations — text as adopted by the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye, in particular Articles 502 and 506. The adopted text and the consolidated text including later amendments are not the same document.
7. UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, 1990 — document text in the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library, in particular principles 16–18.

Rendering note: The modern Turkish text of the fifty precepts was compared with the historical transcription cited above. Period expressions have been retained; explanations of today’s law are given separately from the precepts.