Lauren Friedman is a partner in the New York office of King & Spalding and co-leads the firm’s energy transition disputes group.  She is a member of the International Disputes group, which won “International Arbitration Group of the Year” from Global Arbitration Review in four of the past five years, and is ranked by Chambers as Band 1 in the USA.   Lauren appears as lead counsel and as part of large case teams before tribunals and courts around the world.  

Lauren is consistently recognized as a leading partner by the top publications, including Chambers USA (2022-2024), Legal 500 Latin America (2020-2022), Benchmark Litigation (2020-2022), and Who's Who Legal (2019-2023).  In 2021, Who’s Who Legal selected Lauren as one of the 10 “Most Highly Regarded” partners in the Americas under the age of 45.  Chambers USA recently published that “she's incredibly smart and she's just one of those lawyers who is a gifted advocate for her client,” “I think very highly of her. She's really smart, focused, determined, and serious about what she does,” and “she's done a great job getting key decisions for us as a company.”  Who's Who Legal reports that she is “a favorite among international commentators” and “she is the first person I call with a difficult question of law,” and she is commended for her “outstanding capacity to generate and execute well defined and complex arguments,” her “great energy,” and her “very technical, thorough and professional” approach.  

Lauren has experience in a wide range of sectors, including electricity, water, oil & gas, LNG, banking, private equity, petrochemical, accounting, pharmaceutical, M&A, and construction and infrastructure.   

As a result of her 15 years of experience with environmental disputes in the energy space, Lauren is actively focused on the legal challenges that arise in response to the energy transition and climate change.  She has represented and advised clients on unique challenges related to the rapidly-development legal framework on the environment, including exit strategies and stranded assets.  She works actively with the Sabin Center for Climate Change at Columbia University to address the barriers to the development of renewable energy within the United States.