Christoph H. Vaagt has been advising law firms and in-house legal departments since 1997. He works to improve the effectiveness of groups and organizations and therefore, people’s working lives. He brings insight and care to consultancy, applied research and evaluation – based on social, economic and legal science. He uses methodologies like coaching, group dynamics, facilitation and systemic change techniques. Christoph H. Vaagt is member of the IBA Global Managing Partner Mentoring Program and Chairman of the IBA Knowledge Management Sharing Project on partnership issues, which discusses governance and profit sharing arrangements.
He advises law firms in particular in
• mastering fundamental changes in partnerships and legal departments
• strategy, organization and communications issues
• developing management systems
through reflective processes, coaching and decision-making.
Christoph H. Vaagt studied Law and the Science of Art in Kiel, Aix-en-Provence and Munich. He began his career as a management consultant in Paris and Munich before qualifying as a lawyer in 1995 and practicing at the bar in Munich.
Since 1997 he advises commercial law firms, some of them MDPs, in continental Europe, mainly on strategic and management issues and the change which comes with it. He is a member of the Law Firm Management group of the International bar Association and serves on its Advisory Board.
He regularly publishes in law firm management publications and has edited “Law Firm Strategies for the 21st Century” as well as “General Counsel in the 21st Century”, both publications sponsored by the IBA. He is the publisher of a financial benchmarking survey of the Top 100 German law firms. Chris is regularly invited to speak at the national lawyers convention, by local Bars and associations. Among other things, he facilitated networking events of alliances, and Workshops at the IBA, like the one in October 2013 in Boston, MA/USA, on Challenges and Opportunities for law firms, with David Morley, Senior partner of Allen & Overy. Besides German, he speaks both English and French fluently.
