Petek Günay Balatsas is an accomplished litigator focusing on commercial litigation and alternative dispute resolution with an emphasis on complex business and employment disputes.

Petek handles litigation matters both in federal and state courts and before various arbitral and administrative bodies. Petek has extensive experience prosecuting and defending high-stakes contract disputes, fraud and business torts, corporate veil-piercing claims, and partnership, membership, and shareholder disputes. Petek also regularly represents employers as well as senior executives in restrictive covenant, wage and hour, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and trade secret disputes.

Petek routinely accesses her significant litigation experience to counsel clients on business, employment, and compliance issues. Petek has drafted, reviewed, and negotiated countless agreements for her clients including a wide variety of corporate agreements, employment, executive compensation and severance agreements, professional services, production, supply and distribution agreements, architectural, construction, art purchase and art advisory, and boxing bout, promotion and management agreements.

Petek is a native of Istanbul, Türkiye, and is highly prepared to serve the legal needs of her Turkish-speaking and Türkiye-facing clients, as well as other domestic and international clients.

Petek has been recognized by The American Turkish Society as one of the organization’s Young Society Leaders, a group of accomplished professionals with a demonstrated record of success, leadership ability and commitment to serve the U.S.-Turkish community at large. Petek is also the co-head of the Law Circle of the Turkish WIN (Women’s International Network), a global network for women with cultural, family or professional ties to Türkiye.

In 2021, Petek was featured in “Amerika’da Nasıl Başardılar?” (“How Did They Succeed in the U.S.?”), a book comprised of interviews with seventeen Turkish-born individuals recognized for outstanding accomplishments in the United States in the fields of business, law, and science. Petek is a participant in AmCham Türkiye’s Global Turks par Excellence project and a member of the Gala Committee for the Turkish Centennial Gala at the Met.

Prior to attending law school, Petek was an Operations and Foreign Exchange Specialist at the New York branch of Vakifbank, one of Türkiye’s largest banks.

Admissions

  • State of New York
  • U.S. District Court Southern District of New York
  • U.S. District Court Northern District of New York

Education

  • Brooklyn Law School, J.D. – cum laude – Dean’s Merit Scholar
  • Franklin and Marshall College, B.A.

Honors

  • Young Society Leaders, The American Turkish Society – 2020

Presentations

  • “Women in Entrepreneurship. What makes women entrepreneurs unique, different, and successful?” Panelist. Third Turkish American Women in Leadership Forum. Morristown, NJ. (November 4, 2023).