Daniel Lee (이원조)

Daniel Wonzo Lee "is a strategic thinker with a deep understanding of corporate law and practice" (Corporate and M&A: Foreign Firms, 2025 Legal 500). "Daniel Lee is always looking for ways to better serve his clients. Having worked in-house himself, he knows what a major corporation needs and when they need it. His understanding of our needs is so extremely helpful when dealing with issues and deadlines" (Projects & Energy, 2025, Legal 500).

Daniel has been helping clients with a wide range of complex cross-border mergers and acquisitions, international joint ventures, foreign direct investments and international arbitration, US civil litigation and US patent litigation for 40 years.

As he spent early days of his legal career as a litigator in Los Angles, he has many years of court room experience. Later, he transitioned to a transaction practice. This enables him to provide a holistic advice. He has been continuously voted as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Korea by the Asia Business Law Journal since 2018.

Daniel is an US FDI expert with a great deal of experience representing major Korean companies. He was the lead counsel for the automobile plant projects in Georgia, USA and Piracicaba in Brazil and many other investors. In 2020, he played a pivotal role in securing the first import of 40M doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for Korea.Before joining DLA Piper in 2008 as Head of the Korea Practice in Tokyo, Daniel worked for major law firms in Los Angeles, Honolulu and Seoul.

Daniel is the founder of the In-house Counsel Forum (IHCF) in Korea in 1998, which now has over 2,400 in-house counsel members, and served as its first President from 1998 to 2002. He is also the founder of the Foreign Law Firm Association (FLA) in Korea and served as its first President from 2014 to 2016. In 2025, he has been re-elected to serve as the 5th President of the FLA.