Laparoscopic nephrectomy has become the standard of care for kidney procurement in live donor renal transplantation. Debate persists regarding the use of hand-assisted versus purely laparoscopic techniques. Many centers remain skeptical about the use of right kidneys procured laparoscopically, due to the added technical challenges of laparoscopic right donor nephrectomy. This video presents our techniques for hand-assisted laparoscopic donor nephrectomy for both left and left right kidney procurement. Indications for left versus right nephrectomy are discussed. Patient positioning, trocar strategy, and technical aspects of hand-assisted nephrectomy are described and illustrated. Data is presented which describes the potential advantages of a hand-assisted approach to donor nephrectomy in contrast to a totally laparoscopic technique. Most importantly, the hand-assisted laparoscopic approach has resulted in a statistically-significant one hour reduction in operative time. Perioperative results for laparoscopic right and left donor nephrectomy are presented and compared. Minimally-invasive nephrectomy has the potential to decrease donor morbidity, when compared with the traditional open approach. Hand-assisted laparoscopy confers the advantages of the purely laparoscopic approach, while significantly decreasing operative time. Using this approach, we have found no differences in donor or recipient outcomes for left or right donor nephrectomy.