Lauren Handel is the principal attorney at Handel Food Law LLC, where she counsels and represents food, farming and alcoholic beverage businesses. Lauren’s practice includes regulatory compliance, commercial contracts, intellectual property and litigation.

Before forming her firm, Lauren was a partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP where her practice concentrated on product liability and environmental litigation, as well as workplace safety regulation. After nearly 10 years of counseling and defending Fortune 50 companies, Lauren decided to put her skills and experience 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 LL.M. 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 is the author of 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. She frequently lectures on food and agricultural law topics at seminars for the food industry and for attorneys.