Kirkland & Ellis Builds International Arbitration Practice

NEW YORK, Oct. 5, 2016 — Kirkland & Ellis LLP is pleased to announce that Lauren Friedman and Lucila Hemmingsen joined the Firm as partners in the New York office on Oct. 1. Ms. Friedman and Ms. Hemmingsen will contribute to the Firm’s growing International Arbitration Practice Group, alongside Javier Rubinstein, who also joined the Firm’s Chicago and New York offices as a partner earlier this month. Mr. Rubinstein, who was most recently Vice Chairman and Global General Counsel at PricewaterhouseCoopers International (PwC), is well known in the legal community for his work on complex international commercial and investment arbitrations.

“We are excited about the addition of Lauren and Lucila to the international arbitration practice. They will be essential to the building of the practice in the United States and globally,” Mr. Rubinstein said. “And, their experience with high-profile arbitration matters in a diverse range of sectors, coupled with their foreign language skills, will be extremely beneficial to clients who must navigate this increasingly complex global business environment.”

Ms. Friedman, formerly a senior associate at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in New York, handles global investment arbitration disputes. A fluent Spanish speaker, Ms. Friedman has worked on numerous disputes involving Latin America. She has represented states and investors in the energy, gas, water, food distribution and electricity sectors in commercial and investment disputes. She speaks regularly on arbitration-related topics, including at Columbia Law School, New York University Law School and Harvard Law School. She holds a J.D. from Berkeley School of Law and a B.S. from Cornell University.

Ms. Hemmingsen, who was previously an associate at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York, represents private clients and states in all stages of commercial and investment arbitrations and has a particular focus on Latin America. She also has experience handling cross-border internal investigations. Ms. Hemmingsen is dual-qualified in civil and common law and has handled arbitration matters in English, Spanish and Portuguese, governed by various substantive laws and conducted under the rules of ICC, LCIA, AAA/ICDR, ICSID and UNCITRAL across a variety of sectors, including construction, mining, energy, retail and real estate. She is an involved member of the International Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the American Society of International Law, the National Association of Women Lawyers and a number of arbitration-specific organizations. She has an LL.M. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a J.D. from Torcuato De Tella University Law School in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

About Kirkland & Ellis
Kirkland & Ellis LLP (www.kirkland.com) is a 1,700-attorney law firm representing global clients in complex litigation, dispute resolution and arbitration, private equity, M&A and other complex corporate transactions, restructuring, and intellectual property and technology matters. The Firm has offices in New York, Beijing, Chicago, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Munich, New York, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Shanghai and Washington, D.C.