Lauren Bursey

Lauren Bursey is a US qualified lawyer with expertise in US, UK, and international law, focusing on art, museum, and cultural heritage law, as well as international litigation, arbitration, and public international law.

She has previously worked as a lawyer at major international law firms in both the US and the UK, advising high net-worth individual collectors, museums, auction houses, and galleries.

Her work has involved advising on restitution issues for both Holocaust-looted art and colonial-looted heritage, litigation concerning stolen artworks, international transactions for the sale, purchase, and financial loan of blue-chip artwork, and assessing the legal and reputational risks of purchases of antiquities according to due diligence, provenance, and regulatory standards.

Lauren has also worked at the Art Law Centre, University of Geneva, on ArThemis, the open access cultural heritage restitution database, and at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in the Office of General Counsel.

Lauren has spoken at academic and professional conferences internationally, and previously lectured at the London School of Economics, the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, Columbia University, Christie’s Education, and the Royal Society of Sculptors.

She has contributed research and editing to numerous books on art and cultural heritage law, including the two-volume treatise Art Law: The Guide for Collectors, Investors, Dealers & Artists (5th ed, eds. R. Lerner, J. Bresler, & D. Wierbicki, 2020), and The Sale of Misattributed Art and Antiques at Auction, by Anne Laure Bandle (2d ed., 2024).

Lauren was a co-author of written evidence to the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Colonial Restitution concerning potential legal avenues for the restitution of colonial-looted objects in UK museums and collections.

Lauren completed her PhD at the London School of Economics, with a thesis entitled “Non-State Actors in the Illicit Trade in Cultural Heritage: From Armed Conflict to the Western Markets”.

She intends future publication of her PhD work. She also holds an LLM in transnational arbitration and dispute settlement from Sciences Po, Paris; a JD from DePaul University College of Law, Chicago (summa cum laude) with a certificate in Art, Museum, and Cultural Heritage Law; and an Honours Bachelor of Arts in History and Classical Civilizations from the University of Toronto, Trinity College (High Distinction).

She also holds a certificate in Provenance Research from the European Shoah Legacy Institute.