Lepton flavor is an accidental symmetry of the Standard Model (SM) which is broken, since neutrinos are massive and oscillate between different flavors. Nonetheless, the smallness of neutrino masses ensures that all decays with lepton flavor violation (LFV) remain highly suppressed and basically not observable. These processes are therefore very clean probes of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). In this talk, I will discuss the role of LFV searches in the quest for New Physics. Particular emphasis will be given to the hint of lepton universality violation recently reported by the LHCb collaboration and the implications for LFV in B meson decays.