real estate

What to Expect in Cannabis Real Estate Deals

Cannabis real estate transactions can be notoriously complicated – much more so than your average real estate deal. On January 9, 2024, I’ll be speaking on a panel called “Navigating Real Estate Issues Impacting the Cannabis Industry” for the Los Angeles County Bar Association, where my co-panelists and I plan on touching on many of

cannabis contract

Risk Allocation in Cannabis Contracts

One of the main reasons why I am such a vocal supporter of written cannabis contracts is allocation of risk and liabilities. Parties to a cannabis contract have a number of ways that they can allocate risks and liabilities that they just won’t have in a “handshake” deal. Today I’ll explore six of the top

federal cannabis legalization

Federal Cannabis Legalization Isn’t Here Just Yet

I’ve been representing clients in California’s cannabis industry since 2018. Our firm has been representing businesses in the space for many years before that, in states with more mature licensing programs. One of the most common mistakes we see in new cannabis markets is businesses that rely too much on federal legalization happening. For example,

written contract

Five Reasons Written Contracts Beat Handshake Deals

One of the best insurance policies a cannabis business can get is a written contract. Paying a lawyer a little bit up front can save hundreds of thousands when things go south. A lot of folks in the cannabis industry are still doing deals on a handshake basis (you can see some of our older

cannabis trade secrets

How to Kill Your Cannabis Trade Secrets in One Simple Sentence

Cannabis businesses use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) constantly. This may be due to a series of factors, or some combination thereof: 1) the relative hardship of acquiring and protecting intellectual property over marijuana-related processes and products, today and historically; 2) a general modus operandi of “close to the vest” dealings in an industry that historically was

cannabis subchapter s election

How Did You Mess Up Your Cannabis Subchapter S Election?

The internet is littered with writings on the relative merits of corporate forms and tax elections for cannabis businesses. Even the best of these articles are as dull as ditchwater, because the topic is tax. Most of the authors mention subchapter S taxation at some point, and the showier ones may even dredge up cannabis

wind up cannabis company

How To Wind Up a Cannabis Company

Most cannabis companies are not wound up properly; some cannabis companies (and their owners) suffer repercussions for this; and all cannabis companies (and their owners, and investors!) are well served by an orderly windup. This blog post will cover some basics on the cannabis business windup process. First, though, I want to address a point

cannabis businesses

Strategies for Distressed Cannabis Businesses

It’s pretty easy to write about everything that’s going wrong in today’s cannabis industry. Today, I want to change gears and talk about some of the strategies we’ve seen work for distressed cannabis businesses in the past. Yes, some of these strategies may seem obvious at first. But pulling them off correctly – especially in

cannabis investment

Cannabis Investment and the NBA

In case you missed it, professional players on teams in the National Basketball Association are getting a free and clear opportunity to take advantage of the cannabis industry through cannabis investments. As a former D-1 college athlete, I’m glad to see the NBA not only remove cannabis from its list of banned substances but also

corporate secretary

Is a Corporate Secretary Really Important?

As a corporate attorney, one of the most common errors I see is failure to implement even basic corporate governance practices. This can lead to astoundingly bad places in certain circumstances. But even when it doesn’t, it is often costly to reconstruct past corporate actions. And that cost can be defrayed relatively easily. One way