Saemee Kim

Practice Areas

International arbitration, Cross-border litigation

Career

Saemee Kim is a Partner at Lee & Ko, specializing in international arbitration and cross-border litigation. Ms Kim has handled a variety of high-value, complex commercial disputes administered under ICC, SIAC, LCIA, KCAB, AAA (ICDR), HKIAC and UNCITRAL Rules as well as ad hoc arbitrations and cross-border litigation before foreign courts. As a Korean attorney, she also has numerous experiences acting as counsel in domestic court hearings for foreign clients.

Aside from acting as counsel for clients, she has been frequently invited to speak at many seminars even when she was an associate, including YSIAC Advocacy Workshop (2016), HKIAC seminar for inhouse counsels (2017), Mock arbitration supported by HK45, DIS40 and YIAG (2017), ICCYAF seminar (2018), and Kyoto Vis Pre-moot seminar (2019). Ms. Kim is well known in the Korean arbitration community, and has been active in the global arbitration community by acting as Young ICCA Event Coordinator since 2018. She has been promoted to one of the two Young ICCA Events Co-Directors overseeing all of the events and workshops globally held by Young ICCA.

She took a year off in 2019 to pursue an LLM degree from Stanford Law School and passed the California Bar Exam in 2020.

During the first half of 2021, after being promoted as partner, Ms. Kim was seconded to Freshfields Singapore office and since returning to the team, she has been playing leading roles in arbitration cases as well as proactively participating in various arbitration community initiatives. She became one of the founders of the South Korea Chapter of Energy Related Arbitration Practitioners (ENERAP) and is acting as the Chair of the committee for the CIArb YMG Korea Chapter.

She has been recognized by Who’s Who Legal as a “Future Leader” for four consecutive years since 2019 and she has also been recognized as a “Leading Lawyer” in 2020 by Legal Times based on in-house counsels’ feedback and as “Rising Stars” in Legal 500 in 2021 and 2022.

Professional Memberships

Korean Bar Association, California Bar Association

Publications

-'The Baker & McKenzie International Arbitration Yearbook 2018, Korea Chapter', Juris Publishing (co-author) (2018)

-'The Baker & McKenzie International Arbitration Yearbook 2017, Korea Chapter', Juris Publishing (co-author) (2017)

-'International Encyclopedia of Agency & Distribution Agreements, South Korea' (Augustín Jausas ed., supp. 32, Kluwer Law International) (co-author) (2016)

-'The Baker & McKenzie International Arbitration Yearbook 2016, Korea Chapter', Juris Publishing (co-author) (2016)

-'Arbitration World International Series 5th Ed., South Korea Chapter', Thomson Reuters (co-author) (2015)

-'The Baker & McKenzie International Arbitration Yearbook 2015, Korea Chapter', Juris Publishing (co-author) (2015)

-'The Baker & McKenzie International Arbitration Yearbook 2014, Korea Chapter', Juris Publishing (co-author) (2014)

-'Default on Costs: A Review Under the ICC Rules' The Korean Commercial Arbitration Board, Korean Arbitration Review 3rd Ed. (co-author)Presentation on the Investor Protection under the FSCMA (2009. Korea In-house Counsel Forum)

Personal

Korea University (LLB, 2011); Stanford Law School (LLM, 2020)