Inspired by the recent hints of lepton flavor universality violation in brightarrow sell ell and brightarrow cell nu transitions, we study lepton flavor violating exclusive Lambda _brightarrow Lambda ell _1^+ell _2^- (ell _1ne ell _2) decay, which is forbidden in the Standard Model. Starting from a general effective Hamiltonian for a brightarrow sell _1^+ell _2^- transition that includes vector and axial-vector operators, and scalar and pseudo-scalar operators, we derive a two-fold decay distribution of Lambda _brightarrow Lambda ell _1^+ell _2^-. The distribution helps us to construct the differential branching ratio and the lepton-side forward–backward asymmetry, which are studied in a vector leptoquark model. The parameter space of the vector leptoquark model is constrained by low energy observables.