Rachel G Lattimore

Rachel Lattimore is well-recognized as an expert in the US regulation of bioengineered crops and plants. Rachel’s practice focuses on biotechnology and extends to broader environmental and food safety issues, litigation, as well as association and nonprofit organization matters. Since joining Arent Fox in 1994, Rachel has played an active role in the various aspects of firm life. Rachel currently chairs the firm’s emerging technology subcommittee within the life sciences group. As chair, she coordinates a team of attorneys with different legal specialties who service clients in the life sciences sector, providing a coordinated, common sense legal approach to the unique hurdles faced in the development, regulation and marketing of products developed through new technologies. Rachel is also former chair of the associates committee. Rachel’s work in biotechnology includes representation of large and small technology providers, as well as industry groups serving these companies. Her clients include developers of biotechnology-derived agricultural traits, as well as companies developing therapeutic proteins for pharmaceutical and industrial use. Rachel assists these clients with understanding, interpreting and complying with the regulatory framework governing these types of products, including laws, regulations and guidance documents in this area administered by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Her expertise includes the proposed bioengineered food premarket notification requirements, the plant-incorporated protectant regulations and the National Organic Program. Rachel has worked with a number of industry associations, located inside and outside Washington, DC. She has assisted these organizations not only with litigation and the coordination of industry regulatory strategy, but also with antitrust counseling, contract negotiation and other day-to-day legal issues facing these types of entities. Rachel grew up on a farm in western North Carolina, where much of her family still lives. Her first jobs included picking apples, birthing calves, and working in a winding room of the local cotton mill. She currently lives in downtown DC in a hundred-year-old house that she and her husband are renovating.