Lauren Handel

Lauren Handel is an attorney for food, beverage, and supplement businesses and entrepreneurs. Lauren helps clients with regulatory compliance and enforcement actions, risk mitigation, commercial contracts, intellectual property, recalls, and disputes.

Lauren has more than 20 years of experience as an attorney. She previously was a partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP where her practice concentrated on product liability and environmental litigation. After a decade of counseling and defending Fortune 50 companies, Lauren decided to put her skills to work for independent businesses that produce the things she is most passionate about − good food and drink.

Lauren earned her bachelor of arts degree, cum laude, from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1997; her JD, cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center in 2002; and an LLM in Agricultural and Food Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law in 2013. She is admitted to practice in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, the US Supreme Court, and the US District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.

Lauren frequently speaks at seminars for the food industry, and she has taught several CLEs on food labeling law and food business contracts. She also authored  A Practitioner’s Guide to Defending “Natural” Food Labeling Litigation, published in the Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture & Natural Resources Law, as well as a chapter on Urban Agricultural Nuisances and State Right to Farm Laws published by the American Bar Association in the book Urban Agriculture: Policy, Law, Strategy, and Implementation.