Omar Figueroa

Founder | Attorney

The Law Offices of Omar Figueroa, Inc.

Omar Figueroa has more than twenty six years of experience at the vanguard of California cannabis law and is widely respected as an industry expert.

Omar earned his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Yale College in Connecticut and his Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in California. He also graduated from the Trial Lawyers College in Wyoming, and earned a certificate from the Aresty Institute of Executive Education at The Wharton School after completing the intensive “Boards That Lead: Corporate Governance That Builds Value” program in Pennsylvania for directors of corporate boards. 

Omar is a Director of the Sebastopol Center for the Arts and the Sonoma County Bar Association.  He is also a Founding Lifetime Member and Director Emeritus of the International Cannabis Bar Association, a former Director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, and a Lifetime Member of the NORML Legal Committee. 

Omar has been recognized with the Distinguished Counsel’s Award by NORML, and is considered one of the Top 200 Global Psychedelics Lawyers and Policy Experts as well as one of the Global Top 200  Cannabis Lawyers. He also served a two year-term as a member of the Sonoma County Cannabis Advisory Group after being appointed by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

Omar was trained as a litigator by his mentor, legendary San Francisco trial lawyer J. Tony Serra, sometimes called the Hippie Atticus Finch.

Omar founded a legal publishing company, Lux Law Publishing, and he is the author and publisher of a series of books documenting the evolution of cannabis laws and regulations in California and New York.

Omar has earned respect for his historic work documenting the legal evolution of cannabis law and several of his books are part of the collection of the Stanford Libraries and can be found at the Robert Crown Law Library at Stanford Law School.  Omar’s books can also be found at the Lilian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School.

Omar was trained as a litigator by his mentor, legendary San Francisco trial lawyer J. Tony Serra.  He also served a two year-term as a member of the Sonoma County Cannabis Advisory Group after being appointed by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

Omar frequently appears in media coverage as a legal expert on cannabis.  He has spoken at cannabis events around the world, such as Spannabis and The International Cannabis Business Conference in Barcelona, MJBizCon NEXT in New Orleans, The Emerald Cup in Sonoma County, and the State of Cannabis in Long Beach, to name a few. 

Omar is a member of the Ganjier Council and helped develop a curriculum to train Ganjiers (cannabis sommeliers) as well as the Systematic Assessment Protocol (SAP) to judge fine cannabis and concentrates.  

Omar’s interests are not limited to cannabis, and he has a profound, long-term interest in entheogen law and policy. Omar has served as a Legal Advisor to Decriminalize California, a campaign to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms in California by means of a statewide voter initiative.

Omar also volunteered his time as a Board Member with the Sonoma County Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California, and along with other members of its  the Law Enforcement Surveillance Technology (LEST) team spearheaded Sonoma County’s first  Surveillance Technology Ordinance.

Omar has a long record of pro bono service, including decades of successfully defending protesters and activists.  Some notable pro bono cases defended by Omar include, but are not limited to: dismissal of the first federal prosecution brought under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act; dismissal of state charges against OG computer hacker Kevin Mitnick in Los Angeles County; no jail time against journalist Will Parrish in Mendocino County; dismissal against septuagenarian forest defender in Humboldt County; hung jury trial in the Southern District of California (San Diego federal court) with no jail time against legendary activist Rod Coronado; no jail time and no felony conviction against a member of the so-called Paypal 14 in the Northern District of California (San Jose federal court); benevolent hacker Pimpshiz, motivated by a desire to alert authorities to flaws in the information infrastructure (Oakland federal court); cannabis activist and grower Eddy Lepp ( San Francisco federal court); and dismissal against animal rights activist facing multiple felony charges in Sonoma County and years in prison.