President: James MacGuill

James MacGuill, Managing Partner at MacGuill and Company, was admitted to the role of solicitor in 1986 and was appointed a Notary Public in 1996. He has been in private practice ever since as a litigator with an emphasis on public law, especially criminal law. He has been actively involved in The Law Society of Ireland, has chaired many of its committees and served as President of the Law Society in 2007-2008. He joined the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe in 2008, where he was Head of the Irish Delegation and, later, Chair of its Criminal Law Committee until January 2019.

>> Interview with the CCBE President James MacGuill - January 2022

>> CCBE President message - February 2022

First Vice-President: Panagiotis Perakis

After his studies in Greece (Athens Law University) and France (University of Montpellier, DEA in computer law), Panagiotis Perakis started his career as a lawyer providing legal services in both advisory and judicial proceedings. Over the years, he became an expert in Greek Corporate Law and continued practicing other areas of law gaining extensive experience in multiple kinds of cases, as well as dispute resolution procedures. At the same time, he has served as an independent legal expert of the EU Commission for years, on the resolving and regulation of new legal issues arising by the changing Information and Telecommunications technologies. Since 2011, he has been an elected member of the Executive Board of the Athens Bar. Mr. Perakis was the Chair of the CCBE Access to Justice Committee since February 2015, the Head of the Greek Delegation in 2019, and elected as CCBE Third Vice-President in 2020.

Second Vice-President: Pierre-Dominique Schupp

Pierre-Dominique Schupp began practising law in 1989 after obtaining a PhD in law. He became an associate and then a partner at Rusconi & Associés. After having been a member of the Disciplinary Commission of the Vaud Bar Association between 1998 and 2001 and then a member of the Council of the Vaud Bar Association between 2001 and 2004, he was elected Vice-President and then President of the Vaud Bar Association between 2006 and 2010. He was then President of the Swiss Bar Association from 2009 to 2015. He became a member of the Swiss delegation to the CCBE in 2016 and worked as an expert in the CCBE Insurance Committee and the European Convention Working Group. In addition to French, he is fluent in English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Third Vice-President: Thierry Wickers

Thierry Wickers has been practising as a lawyer since 1978. Between 1990 and 1998, he was a member and then secretary of the Bordeaux Bar Council. Elected President of the Bordeaux Court of Appeal Bar Council in 2000-2001, he then chaired the Conférence des Bâtonniers in 2004-2005 and the Conseil National des Barreaux (CNB) from 2009 to 2011. He is one of the three authors of Règles et Usages de la profession d'avocat, which is, in France, the reference book on the organisation and deontology of the legal profession. He started his cooperation with the CCBE in 2012, first as a member of the French delegation and two years later as head of delegation. He chaired the CCBE Committee on the Future of the Legal Profession and Legal Services between 2016 and 2022 and also worked as an expert in the Brexit, CCBE Statutes Review and Quality committees and working groups.