This panel provides an overview of litigation finance, explores unique aspects of cannabis litigation that make cannabis litigation finance necessary, and provides resources for cannabis attorneys and their clients as they explore litigation finance as a new
tool.
The 2018 Farm Bill de-scheduled hemp and many cannabis operators and investors fatigued by over-regulation are exploring hemp as an alternative market for intoxicating products. But an unregulated interstate market may be even more risky than potential operators realize. Hemp law experts provide a deep dive on the current state of hemp law and policy, with practical perspectives for operators and their lawyers.
This panel will address strategies for handling valuation disputes and other post-closing adjustments arising from cannabis M&A, looking at before-the-fact transactional considerations and after-the-fact litigation solutions. We will also consider the availability of state-law restructuring and turnaround remedies given the absence of federal bankruptcy protection for cannabis companies; it’s a hybrid event.
Join licensing experts from Dutchie and INCBA as they discuss New York’s newly available Adult-Use Cannabis license applications, including tips for success based on experience with prior application rounds and discussions with New York’s top cannabis regulators. This program is accredited for 1 hour of CLE.
INCBA Global Cannabis Intellectual Property Symposium 2023 session: Cannabis Patents and Plant Variety Rights - Things to Know and Challenges Unique to the Cannabis Industry
Global Cannabis Intellectual Property Symposium 2023 session: IP Litigation and Administrative Proceedings: A Global Overview of Managing Cannabis Conflicts
Global Cannabis Intellectual Property Symposium 2023 session: Ethics: Balancing Activism and Zealous Advocacy with the Boundaries of the Profession and Evolving Law
As the cannabis industry grows and more states allow cannabis licensing, the ethical duties that cannabis attorneys must balance have grown more complicated. These ethical duties require lawyers to balance and re-evaluate their duty to zealously advocate for their clients with the duty of candor, their duties to all of their cannabis clients – and, at times, their belief systems and why they entered cannabis law originally. Join our expert panel to discuss these duties and how they try to balance them in their cannabis practices and emerge with a renewed sense of how to identify issues that may challenge competing duties as attorneys and ways to resolve these conflicts.
Effective strategies for success depend on contracts. Given the complexity of the legal and regulatory landscape around cannabis, operators and ancillary providers must be creative and unique to achieve maximum results within the bounds of what is permissible. This panel will break down the many ways in which cannabis companies can effectively and creatively contract to achieve their goals.
Federal Cannabis Legislation and Regulation. Attend this session for an overview of developments in federal cannabis legislation and regulation. Panelists will address new bills, reintroductions, and what is likely to move.
Attendees will leave this panel with a deeper understanding of the current hemp and CBD legislation and proposed legislative solutions to current regulatory and legal challenges facing the hemp and hemp-derived cannabinoid industries. Panelists will do a deep dive into current legislative proposals, as well as approaches for the 2023 Farm Bill.
Pathways to Ending Federal Prohibition: An Overview of Descheduling & Rescheduling. In 2022, President Biden directed his administration to conduct a review of the status of cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act. This session examines the review process for descheduling and rescheduling and their potential impacts.
Interstate Commerce in Theory: Raich, the Dormant Commerce Clause, and How Challenges to Social Equity Programs Could Impact Interstate Cannabis Commerce. From the Supreme Court's decision in Raich v. Gonzales to recent challenges regarding state-level importing and exporting restrictions, the Constitution's Commerce Clause has played a critical role in shaping the legal cannabis industry. Our panel of legal experts will dive deep into the precedential cases and discuss recent dormant Commerce Clause challenges to the constitutionality of social equity programs nationwide.
Canada: What Federal Legalization Looks Like 4 years Later and What Have We Learned. This panel explores and reflects on the legislative updates, regulatory challenges, and business opportunities that have evolved over the past four years of federal cannabis legalization in Canada.
A comprehensive and dynamic panel designed to equip attorneys with the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully navigate the complex legal landscape surrounding the commercial cannabis industry.
Regulating Cannabinoids: A Comparative Analysis of Intoxicating and Non-Intoxicating Models. The focus of this session is to provide an overview of the Farm Bill and dive into a comparative analysis of regulatory models for intoxicating and non-intoxicating cannabinoids across the country.
Navigating the Highs and Lows of Cannabis Regulatory Compliance—Insights, Best Practices, and Hurdles. Examine regulatory compliance “hot topics”, including maintaining state licenses and navigating enforcement actions, and explore best practices for corporate governance, novel partnership agreements such as IP licensing and white labeling, and regulatory considerations of various exit strategies for mature cannabis enterprises.
Panelists will explore the current state of cannabis legalization in various regions throughout the Americas and highlight emerging markets with high growth potential. Attendees will leave this panel with a deeper understanding of the current state and future potential of emerging cannabis markets in the Americas, as well as insights and strategies for success in these exciting and rapidly evolving markets.
Medical Cannabis: Overview of Emerging Legal Issues and their Impact on the International Market. The international panel of experts will notably discuss the differences in regulations between medical cannabis and pharmaceutical cannabis, how IP is becoming an essential topic with pharmaceutical cannabis medicines, and how it could also impact medical cannabis in the short run.
Join our panelists for an honest and supportive discussion about harm reduction, stress management, and mental health among attorneys. Learn how to support colleagues in recovery or who are struggling – and how to recognize and manage these challenges in yourself. Discuss how to make colleagues understand that attorney wellness is not merely a buzzword or a generational difference; it is directly related to competence to practice and meeting duties to clients.
Interstate Commerce in Statehouses and the Courts: What Will Ultimately Bring About the Onset of Interstate Sales? At least four states have seen legislative action involving ways that interstate commerce can be triggered prior to full federal legalization, namely California, Oregon, New Jersey, and blank. This panel will explore the potential triggers that could unlock interstate sales, as well as how the lack of movement at the federal level factors into states' decision-making and operators' risks.
Interstate Commerce in Practice: What will Interstate commerce actually look like, and how will it be regulated? Assuming interstate commerce will commence before federal legalization, this session will probe the nuances of the federal government's posture toward state-regulated interstate sales will impact how products can effectively move from state to state. Presenters will discuss the practical challenges for regulators and operators in establishing an efficient and well-regulated interstate market.
Risky Business: Managing Risk Within a Cannabis Company. From insurance to human resources to employment to governance, an effective risk management policy can save money, prevent liability and put your cannabis company in a position for success. These experts will explore all the aspects of effective risk management within a cannabis company.
Here Comes the Money: Banking and Payment Processing in the Cannabis Industry. Banking and payment processing has long been one of the most misunderstood aspects of operating within the cannabis industry. This panel of experts will explore the current state of banking and payments in cannabis and how to utilize these services legally.
In this course, attendees will examine the interconnectedness of social equity initiatives and basic legal principles (i.e. justice, equity, etc.) This program will encourage diversity of thought, give cannabis attorneys more to consider when advising diverse populations and ask participants to walk a mile in a social equity applicant's shoes. Attendees will leave this course with a deeper understanding (and appreciation) of why social equity programs exist, including their role in undoing the harms of cannabis prohibition, how they serve diverse clients and promote equal access to justice, and why social equity programs are necessary.
Cannabis law and policy continue to quickly evolve and the past year has seen major legal developments for the regulated marijuana and hemp industries. Moderated by Paul Demko, Cannabis Editor at POLITICO, this panel of experts bring their broad legal and policy perspectives to identify and comment upon important court rulings and litigation trends, as well as anticipated changes to the law heading into 2024 on a variety of legal topics.
In this session the panelists will discuss international hemp-derived products trade. More specifically, the panelists will offer an overview of what transatlantic trade of hemp-derived products (food products, cosmetic products, vaping products…) for consumer use looks like with a particular focus on import and export of these products from the US market to the EU and/or the UK market(s) and from the EU and/or the UK to the USA.
In this session the panelist will set the stage by discussing the Agricultural Improvement Act, more commonly known as the Farm Bill; specifically, the watershed moment in 2018 where industrial hemp was provided a federally legal pathway. The panel will discuss the unintended consequences created by the definition and function of weight allowance for delta-9 THC and its application to manufactured hemp derived products. The impacts of the definition on the hemp industry, the regulated marijuana industry and overall public health.
Learn about the hemp-derived Minnesota Model and how it is viewed as a preview to what will happen on the federal level. As goes Minnesota, so goes the rest of the nation? Join local and national speakers for their analysis and predictions, who will also discuss novel/intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids and their regulation under both state and federal law, including Delta-8 THC, THC-O, and others.
The panel will focus on the regulations applicable to foodstuff in the US, Mexico, Colombia and Chile. In particular, we will discuss different regulations in connection to dietary supplements, nutraceuticals, advertisement and further challenging issues for the industry, to later focus on the approach that these regulations have regarding the use of hemp in foodstuff products and future challenges in this regard.
The franchise business model offers hemp business owners the opportunity to grow their brand nationally while reducing their startup and operational costs. It offers prospective hemp franchisees the chance to own their own business while benefiting from an established brand and operational system. But a poorly created franchise system or an “accidental” franchise, can expose hemp businesses to the risk of regulatory investigation, litigation, and the loss of key IP such as trademarks and trade secrets. Conflicting state regulations and the lack of significant federal guidance makes franchising a hemp business even more complex.
Evolving cannabis product risks have the potential to result in enormous future liability for which cannabis and hemp companies are currently unprepared. This session will clarify those risks and discuss how embracing a mix of legal reform, policy changes and adoption of traditional risk management principles may prevent future product risk issues from damaging market sustainability.
To successfully navigate a government investigation of a licensed cannabis client, an attorney needs to assess which government agency (or agencies) is conducting the investigation, what are the potential outcomes, and what conflicts of interest may exist – all while taking in information in real time and often dealing with stressed clients. Any attorney may need to conduct an internal investigation at the same – and consider when to step aside and call in an expert. This panel will discuss responding to subpoenas, dealing with evolving disciplinary rules, respecting the Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of individuals, and properly providing Upjohn warnings.
Please join Shane Pennington (Counsel, Vicente LLP) as he discusses various aspects of Impact Litigation & the Changing Terrain in the legal cannabis market. This course’s topics will include: the current state of play, historical precedent that got us into the situation we are in today, and what the future may hold.
This program will address current trends in cannabis securities litigation. Participants can expect to receive information on a variety of cannabis-related securities cases, including the most recent of such cases, which was filed in April 2022. Participants will learn about the current strategies taken in securities actions through cases at varying stages of litigation.
Upon completion of this program, participants should expect to be able to identify common causes of action levied against cannabis-related entities and strategies those entities can implement to mitigate risk.
From patents and plant breeder’s rights, to trademarks and trade secrets, participants will learn how to approach the evolving practice of cannabis IP across several illustrative jurisdictions including Germany, Canada and the United States.
A practical guide on pointers and pitfalls in crafting ADR clauses in contracts to save your clients time and money. The panel will discuss everything from choice of law, venue selection, arbitrator qualifications, "cooling off" and mediation requirements, discovery provisions and appellate options.
Learn about the licensing considerations, continuing obligations, and risk related to physical security in the cannabis industry, from mapping your business to liaising with law enforcement, and from environmental and procedural security to best practices in security employee training, join us to go through the intricacies of security in the cannabis industry.
Participants will learn about the basic limitations and barriers of the cannabis market in Poland from the perspective of cultivators, manufacturers, sellers and patients.
In this session, hear from attorneys who are actively working on applications in the Garden State and with clients who are investing in New Jersey or otherwise gearing up for future submissions. Learn about unique-to-New Jersey license types, such as the “Conditional License,” enabling prospective operators to apply for a license without site control (subject to income restrictions), the “Micro-license,” a 2500 square foot facility for which there are no caps (subject to residency requirements), priorities in licensing, and creative opportunities to participate in the market distinct from ownership (via “Financial Source Agreement” or “Management Services Agreement”). Also learn about how the regulatory process is unfolding and how administrative delays are impacting the licensing process and accompanying operational timelines and legal transactions.
Attendees will gain an overview of the UK Cannabis markets, including an overview of the small but growing medical segment, as well as the booming CBD and wellness industries.
Given the rapid developments that have taken place in just a short year, clients looking to enter the New York cannabis market will likely have many questions. Prepare yourself for these inevitable conversations now by signing up for our webinar where our legal experts will: (i) offer a general overview of the MRTA and adult-use licensing; (ii) break down recently-created adult-use conditional license types, the applicable eligibility criteria, and the potential impact of these conditional licenses on the State’s broader social and economic equity program; and (iii) explain how the State’s medical regulations will change if the proposed changes are adopted and what that means for the existing medical market, the adult-use market, and beyond. If you’re looking for a lively and informative discussion about all things cannabis in the Empire State, look no further – we’ve got you covered!
In any industry, M&A is challenging. In cannabis, the issues can be even more complex. This deeper dive panel will focus on five of the most difficult legal issues to manage in these transactions.
In this CLE, you will learn about best practices and how to avoid common pitfalls in the rules of professional conduct. The panel will also provide an update on current proposals growing out of the attorney-as-gatekeeper discussion.
This is the final installment of INCBA’s Business Law - Formation series. This panel will discuss the nuts and bolts of raising money including, securities laws, what is a security, registration requirements, exemptions to registration, types of investment vehicles, and investor disclosure documents.
Since the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp, there are now two distinct commercial industries: pharmaceuticals / wellness and industrial. In the pharmaceutical and consumer wellness areas, there is an explosion of innovation and new products. In the industrial market, there is increasing interest in light of sustainability and carbon capture considerations.
Focusing on the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA), the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act (MORE), and the States Reform Act (SRA), our panelists will discuss how these proposals would change how the the relevant agencies (such as USDA, FDA, TTB, and PTO) regulate the cannabis sector.
Interstate commerce continues to be at the forefront of the industry's collective mind as we look for solutions to incongruence of supply and demand, stalled equity programs, and fierce competition between and among both licensed participants and illicit businesses.
With legalization initiatives moving quickly in the Tri-State Area, prospective operators are gearing up for what will inevitably be a competitive licensing process. In this session, attorneys will delve into the laws in: New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.
Our distinguished panel of judges will hear argument from both sides—petitioners and the government—and make a decision regarding the legality of marijuana’s continued classification as a Schedule I substance. Come see the exciting hearing unfold!
Focusing on the broad categories of Tax, Labor, Medical Cannabis, Constitutional Issues, and International, each area will be addressed by an expert practitioner.
While jurisdictions such as Canada have given us a glimpse into some of the legal issues faced by a country choosing to legalize federally, other models have since emerged. What are these new jurisdictions? What do they have in common? What legal issues are they facing? Join us for a showcase of other countries who have recently “emerged” to join the global adult use, therapeutic, and industrial hemp markets.
This panel will provide real life practical solutions to the question the cannabis industry faces: how do we level the playing field in a highly regulated, highly competitive industry? We will discuss how to practically implement social equity efforts beyond what states and municipalities have been offering and discuss recommendations for federal legalization.
This session will provide you with practice and practical advice on how to conduct due diligence on an IP portfolio in various types of transactions. The panel will identify top diligence issues so you can spot them in the next transaction you handle, and we'll discuss how to address them.
This panel will provide real life practical solutions to the question the cannabis industry faces: how do we level the playing field in a highly regulated, highly competitive industry? We will discuss how to practically implement social equity efforts beyond what states and municipalities have been offering and discuss recommendations for federal legalization.
Come play the dating game! Our contestants are each license applicants who are given a choice of three potential states (the potential suitors) in which to apply.
Join us for a discussion that focuses on the international legislative mechanisms that regulated countries have used to address their obligations under the UN Single Convention.
Two DC insiders, Saphira Galoob, Managing Director of the Liaison Group, and Amber Littlejohn, Executive Director of the Minority Cannabis Business Association, will discuss a bird's-eye view of Democratic and Republican approaches to federal cannabis reform.
Connecticut State Licensing: Cultivating an Industry in the Land of Steady Habits. Learn about pending litigation against the state due to the licensing and lottery system and the program’s apparent failure to meet social equity goals.
Is access to medical cannabis expanding? Or is adult use overtaking medical cannabis? Abbey Roudebush will present the results of Americans for Safe Access’s annual State of the State report.
In this session speakers will join Belle Borovik, Head of IP at Chia Network Inc., to share their knowledge and understanding of Web 3.0, including: addressing issues central to blockchain and cryptocurrency, such as securities implications around tokenization and fiat; providing an overview of IP issues related to the Metaverse and NFTs; and discussing clients' need for ongoing support with the same old issues in this new disruptive space.
Since 2014, Americans For Safe Access’s annual State of the States report has assessed the strength of medical cannabis programs by assigning grades to each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories. The 2021 Americans for Safe Access State of the States Report will feature new report card formats and scoring that highlight key areas of medical cannabis policy that affect patient needs.
After becoming a cannabis lawyer, you need to ensure you are an ethical one. Learn from our panelists about the issues they confronted as soon as they entered cannabis practice, and what they never expected.
Most lawyers dream of having many clients seeking their services no matter how problematic. Our panelists debate how to manage conflicts of interest during competitive licensing and applications.
This panel of experienced practitioners will provide insight and guidance in spotting and trouble shooting the issues at the early stages of the evaluation and negotiation of cannabis business transactions.
Discover potential conflicts related to Federal agencies for marketers of Cannabis products, from limitations on intellectual property protection to agency enforcement action to litigation.
This CLE explores whether a mark owner has used its mark to sell improperly labeled soap or an illicit drug, the PTO has no mandate, and no convincing policy reason, to deny the owner the substantial benefits of registration.
This webinar will review the different types of internal documents which are needed for a business entity in the cannabis industry, and key considerations for drafting
This webinar provides an overview of the appellate process. Attendees will become acquainted with the phases of an appeal as well as key concepts like error preservation, the record, amicus practice, standards of review, and more.
The recreational cannabis industry has emerged in Spain. We will explore the process to get cultivation licenses for medical cannabis producers, leading products in the market, the social impacts of cannabis clubs, and the realities of the hemp market.
As hemp policy continues to evolve, ensure you are staying at the forefront of regulatory developments to provide your clients with the best counsel for the 2021 production season.
With a new Administration and Congress, changes in personnel at FDA and new safety data being published, is 2021 the year when CBD will come out from under the FDA shadows to be legally marketed in all 50state?
This one hour session will touch on the legal framework of recreational and medicinal cannabis in Switzerland and provide a high-level overview of the newest developments, the challenges, as well as the opportunities in Switzerland’s dynamic cannabis market.
Those already in the cannabis industry and those looking to get into it will get a chance to learn more about newest adult-use markets in the country, how they compare to one another, and what we can anticipate as these new opportunities take shape.
Social Equity: Social Equity and Justice for the Indigenous Community. This CLE will focus on social equity and social justice issues within the indigenous community. Speakers will discuss tribal sovereignty, federal and state recognized tribes and barriers to entry for indigenous tribes into the cannabis industry.
In this 90-minute program, panelists will discuss a range of topics related to the interstate commerce ban, including licensee residency requirements adopted in many states (and associated litigation); the Dormant Commerce Clause; economic and social equity implications of closed markets; and the possibility of interstate compacts as a stopgap pending federal legalization. Speakers will also address the ban’s impact on medical patients and how pending legislation and post-legalization regulatory schemes may impact licensed operators and other industry participants.
The purpose of this webinar is to provide a clear overview of the current regulatory landscape in France on both medical cannabis and wellness hemp/CBD and to answer some frequently asked questions in order to provide some practical tips as to what can be done or not and what to expect in the near future.
This panel seeks to address the pathways for federal cannabis reform in the 117th
Congress, considering legislative vehicles, political pragmatism, and actions of the
Administration.