Lauren Dedon
Senior Legal Policy Advisor
Lauren Dedon is the Senior Legal Policy Advisor at the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, where she supports NGA’s network of Governors’ legal counsel and focuses on legal issues impacting states and territories. For over a decade, Lauren’s policy portfolio has included matters related to executive authority, gubernatorial emergency powers, COVID-19 related legal issues, state AI regulation, criminal justice reform, drug policy, and a range of other legal and policy topics.
Lauren provides legal and technical assistance to Governor’s offices, and has worked with states to support strategic planning, policy development, and implementation practices. She has authored publications on emergency powers, criminal justice reform, and drug policy, with work appearing in the Journal of Emergency Management and the Arizona State Law Journal. During the pandemic, she also created and managed national policy trackers on Governor-involved COVID-19 litigation, state emergency declarations, and mask requirements. Lauren has served on national advisory bodies including the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System Task Force, as an observer for the Uniform Law Commission’s Public Health Emergency Authority Committee, and has testified in front of legislative bodies in Maryland and Oregon.
Prior to joining NGA, Lauren served as a legal and policy advisor to former Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts, where she helped shepherd the passage of landmark criminal justice reform legislation and advised the Governor on corrections, clemency, and other legal issues. She holds a J.D. from the University of St. Thomas School of Law, where she was the recipient of the John R. Roach Fellowship for Public Interest Law. Lauren is licensed to practice law in the state of Minnesota.