With both parents’ graduates of the University of Miami School of Law, Alexandra Bach Lagos grew up immersed in a network of legal influences through her family and friends. Her mom, Mercedes Armas Bach, J.D. ‘79, had her practice before becoming a county court judge in Miami, while her dad, L. Gabriel Bach, J.D. ‘74, was a personal injury attorney. After graduating from Smith College in Massachusetts and suffering through many frigid winters, Lagos decided to return to Miami and knew the University of Miami was the best choice for law school, considering its strong reputation and alumni network.
While a law student, Lagos participated in many internships and externships, including a summer clerkship for Justice R. Fred Lewis at the Florida Supreme Court, a multi-year internship for Federal Magistrate Theodore Klein, and an externship with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office as a Certified Legal Intern in the juvenile division. She credits these opportunities to Miami Law’s strong platform that provides multiple opportunities for students and alumni to connect and its location in a major metropolitan city.
After law school, Lagos worked at Shook, Hardy & Bacon in their Miami offices, where she had been a summer associate during her 2L summer, a position secured through the Office of Career & Professional Development’s on campus interview program. She remained at Shook for fifteen years, during which time her practice focused primarily on tobacco litigation. At Shook, she was involved in many trials, took hundreds of depositions, and managed thousands of pending cases throughout Florida. She also remained actively engaged in Miami’s legal community, becoming the president of the Florida Association for Women Lawyers in 2011. Lagos received the law school’s Alumni Leadership Award in 2012 in recognition of her leadership.
Lagos later called Greenberg Traurig as a shareholder in 2021 to join their products liability group because she wanted to expand her practice into the pharmaceutical and medical device sector. At GT, she worked alongside Sabrina Gallo, J.D. ‘00, and Frank Citera, J.D. ‘83, on several large multi-district litigations. Citera encouraged her to start teaching at Miami Law, and they have co-taught Toxic Torts together at the school for the past three years.
After nearly two decades of litigating in Big Law, Lagos opted to pursue a new direction in her career earlier this year. Two months ago, Lagos left GT to launch a full-time mediation, arbitration, and special master practice at Alvarez Dispute Resolution. She loves helping people find common ground and crafting solutions to their most challenging problems.
Lagos underscores that Miami Law offers diverse internship and externship programs and considers them key in her law school experience. She also emphasizes that Miami is a rapidly growing city, and Miami Law provided an excellent opportunity to build a network within the Miami community. Miami Law professors foster positive relationships with their students, and Lagos considers this the reason she has stayed so involved with the law school since graduating. In addition to her work as an adjunct professor, Lagos has participated in the Dean’s Circle and judged Moot Court events for students.
Outside of her career, Lagos has two children, 13 and 9, with her husband, Christos Lagos, J.D. ‘98. Together, they love to travel as a family and recently returned from Costa Rica, where they spent time surfing. They also love to ski together. They live in Key Biscayne, where they enjoy nearby family, including her parents, her brother Marcus Bach-Armas, a County Court judge, and her sister-in-law Lara Bueso Bach, an attorney for Univision.
Lagos encourages students to “take advantage of the internships and alumni network all around you. You have the good luck of going to school in Miami. If there is something that you want to do, don’t hesitate to reach out to alumni who are in that field.”
To alumni, she shares that her time teaching as an adjunct professor has been one of the highlights of her professional career and that she has “learned so much from her students and considers it a great way to give back to the law school and further develop your career and expertise.”
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