How should a Turkish Hukuk Lisansı be translated on a certified diploma for WES credential evaluation?
TL;DRA Turkish four-year undergraduate law diploma (Hukuk Lisansı) from Ankara University Faculty of Law was translated for WES credential evaluation. The translation kept 'Hukuk Lisansı' as a retained foreign credential name rather than substituting 'J.D.' or 'LL.B.', because the Turkish degree is an undergraduate law qualification with no exact US equivalent. A Translator's Note documented the credential, and the certified translation was delivered for the application packet.
Case Specifications
- Document
- University diploma (four-year undergraduate law degree)
- Foreign Name
- Diploma — Hukuk Fakültesi Lisans Diploması
- Country
- Türkiye
- Languages
- Turkish → English
- Submitted To
- WES credential evaluation
What We Received
A client submitted a one-page landscape diploma issued by Ankara University Faculty of Law (Hukuk Fakültesi). The diploma certifies completion of the four-year undergraduate law program and names the graduation term. It is signed by the Dean and the Rector, with a round institutional seal and a holographic security seal at the center of the page. The translation was needed for academic credential evaluation in the United States. We delivered a certified <a href="/documents/diploma">diploma translation</a> from <a href="/languages/turkish">Turkish</a> with a signed certificate of accuracy.
Why This Required Special Handling
In Turkey, law is taught as an undergraduate four-year program — a 'Lisans' degree from a Hukuk Fakültesi (Faculty of Law). A graduate holds a credential called 'Hukuk Lisansı', earned right after secondary school, not after a prior bachelor's degree. The US Juris Doctor (J.D.), by contrast, is a three-year graduate-entry professional degree. The two are structurally non-equivalent, and no single English label captures the Turkish credential cleanly.
For academic credential evaluation, this distinction matters. <a href="/accepted-by/wes">WES equivalency review for foreign law degrees</a> rests on the actual credential name appearing in the translation. It does not rest on the translator's guess at what an American evaluator might recognize. Substituting 'J.D.', 'LL.B.', or 'bachelor's degree in law' would prejudge a determination the evaluator — not the translator — is authorized to make.
How We Handled It
We translated every line of the diploma into English while preserving the foreign credential structure. 'Türkiye Cumhuriyeti' was rendered as 'REPUBLIC OF TÜRKİYE' — the country's official UN-recognized English name since 2022. 'Ankara Üniversitesi' became 'ANKARA UNIVERSITY' and 'Hukuk Fakültesi' became 'FACULTY OF LAW', the established English forms used by the institution itself.
The Turkish body sentence — 'Dört Yıllık Lisans Öğrenimini tamamlayarak Diploma almaya hak kazanmıştır' — was rendered in English as 'has completed the four-year undergraduate program of the Faculty of Law and has earned the right to receive a diploma'. The English mirrors the Turkish without inserting a credential equivalent. The two officials' titles, 'Dekan' and 'Rektör', were rendered as 'Dean' and 'Rector'.
Both handwritten signatures are stylized scrawls that do not legibly spell out the printed names below them. They were marked '[Illegible signature]' above each printed name. Every signature description in a certified translation must declare whether the signature is legible — silent '[Signature]' markers leave the reader guessing. The university's holographic security seal and the round institutional emblem seal ('ANKARA ÜNİVERSİTESİ 1946') were reproduced as bracketed stamp descriptions in their original positions.
Turkish diacritics on the signatories' names (Hüseyin ALTAŞ, Erkan İBİŞ) were preserved as in the source. The completeness of a name in certified translation depends on the diacritics being part of the legal spelling.
"'Hukuk Lisansı' is the Turkish undergraduate four-year law degree (Lisans), earned after secondary school. It has been retained as a foreign credential name in this translation. It is not equivalent to the US Juris Doctor (J.D.) or to a bachelor's degree in another field. Equivalency determinations are reserved to the receiving evaluator. 'Türkiye' is the country's official English-language name as adopted by the United Nations in 2022."
The Outcome
The certified translation was delivered as a one-page DOCX with a signed Translator's Certification page documenting the credential-name retention and the 'Türkiye' endonym choice. The retained 'Hukuk Lisansı' name allowed the receiving evaluator to apply its own equivalency rules on the actual Turkish degree rather than on a translator's approximation of it. We follow the same approach whenever a <a href="/guides/certificate-of-accuracy">certificate of accuracy</a> covers a foreign law credential.
What This Means for You
If you hold a foreign law degree and need it translated for US credential evaluation, do not let the translator substitute 'J.D.' or 'LL.B.' for the original credential name. The receiving body — WES, ECE, a NACES member, or a state bar — has its own equivalency framework. Your translation should give it the actual credential to evaluate. A short <a href="/guides/foreign-credential-translation">foreign-credential translation guide</a> can help you spot translations that have already prejudged the equivalency question.
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We translate Turkish and other foreign academic and law credentials for US credential evaluators and licensing boards, preserving original credential names and adding Translator's Notes where needed.
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Sources & References
- WES — Required Documents by Country (Turkey)·World Education Services·Verified 2026-05-23
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