Karla Tankut has eight years of experience in criminal defense, including three years as an assistant public defender and felony trial attorney for the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System and five years as a retained defense lawyer. In 2020, Karla was appointed by the Mayor of Oklahoma City to serve as Special Judge presiding over the City’s Municipal Court’s traffic and criminal dockets with the same duties as that of a Michigan District Court judge. Karla was selected in 2021 as a top 10 under 40 by the National Academy of Criminal Defense Attorneys for excellence in criminal law, won her first jury trial within 24 hours of having been sworn into the bar, and has successfully challenged hundreds of illegal searches and seizures. Judge Tankut is a graduate of Oklahoma State University and the University of Tulsa College of Law, and speaks four languages (Turkish – expert, English – expert, Egyptian Arabic – Intermediate, and German – Intermediate). Ms. Tankut is dual-licensed in the State of Michigan and the State of Oklahoma as well as the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma.
