Welcome back to Higher Law, our weekly briefing on all things cannabis. I'm Cheryl Miller, reporting for Law.com from Sacramento, where Madison Bumgarner is still a San Francisco Giant after the trade deadline and all is right in the world. May your future transactional work be just as successful.

This week, we're looking at:

• Big Law and Cannabis • Insurance Legislation for the Marijuana Industry • A GT Veteran's Move In-House • New York's Decision to Decriminalize.

Thanks for reading. Keep that feedback and those tips coming at [email protected]. You can also reach me at 916.448.2935. Follow me on Twitter @capitalaccounts.

 

 Big Law and Bud

My colleague Patrick Smith at Law.com took a broad look at big law and cannabis this week.

"While more than two dozen Am Law 200 firms have launched formal cannabis practices in the last decade, few Am Law 50 firms are among them," he writes. (Goodwin Procter is one exception, he notes.) Those that publicly embrace the practice tend to have a clientele consisting largely of midmarket companies—and Wall Street law firms are still conspicuously absent.

Maybe the biggest firms' absence is a good thing, said Jonathan Robbins, chair of Akerman's cannabis practice. "Bigger firms dipping their toes into it without having the regulatory expertise could cause problems both for the firm and the client," he said

A couple of other takeaways from the piece:

• Access to banking remains the top concern of clients-and sometimes their attorneys. One attorney representing a business involved in the cannabis industry had both her and her 12-year-old son's bank accounts closed after their bank discovered where the attorney made her money, said Chris Davis, executive director of the International Cannabis Bar Association.

• Larger firms may not have cannabis practices but more and more, sometimes quietly, are working with clients in the industry.

"I'm feeling some heat regarding competition," Robbins said. "But if more firms are getting into it, it means the industry is growing and good, quality attorneys are entering the space."

 

New Bill Confronts Canna Business Insurance

Last week we talked about all the challenges the marijuana industry and insurers face trying to manage risk. This week two members of Congress introduced legislation to help address the problem.

Nydia M. Velázquez (D-New York) and Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) unveiled H.R. 4074, the Clarifying Law Around Insurance Marijuana Act. The bill would shield insurers writing policies for cannabis clients from federal prosecution, Denny Jacob writes at NU PropertyCasualty 360. It would also offer liability protections for agents, brokers and insurers.

"Due to discrepancies in federal and state law, insurers are understandably reluctant to provide coverage to legitimate, cannabis-based businesses," Velázquez said in a statement. "Without casualty, property and title insurance coverage, the growth of the industry will be impeded if not blocked entirely."

Will the Claim Act go anywhere in the Senate? Maybe not. But its introduction in the House is the latest example of the friendlier atmosphere cannabis currently enjoys in one side of Congress.

 

Who Got the Work

• Squire Patton Boggs received $150,000 in the second quarter to lobby for the National Cannabis Roundtable, recent filings show. The Roundtable, chaired by former U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, is an advocacy organization whose members include Acreage Holdings, CannaCraft and Flow Kana.

• Greenberg Traurig veteran Michael Aguirre has joined Phoenix, Arizona cannabis company Harvest Health and Recreation Inc. as assistant general counsel. Aguirre's practice experience includes transactions, corporate law and governance issues.

• Hanson Bridgett represented Southern California cannabis operator MM Esperanza 2, doing business as MMAC, in a $19 million sale of assets to Canadian company DionyMed. The sale includes a 1.83 Los Angeles facility that houses a dispensary storefront, distribution facility, and manufacturing hub.

• The International Hemp Trade Association has registered to lobby on Capitol Hill through its executive director, Brett Scott. Scott is a former IRS and U.S. Department of Justice attorney. He also served as legal counsel to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications and was a partner with Yessin & Associates.

• The Silicon Valley Cannabis Alliance has retained the Sacramento firm of K Street Consulting to lobby in California's Capitol. Sponsors of the coalition includeCaliva, Eaze, Harborside and Weedmaps. K Street Consulting also lobbies for VETCBD, a company that sells CBD products for pets.

 

In the Weeds…

>>> New York decriminalized small amounts of marijuana. OK, so the attempt to set up a recreational market in the Empire State didn't go so well this year. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation this week that reduces the charge for possessing less than two ounces of marijuana from a misdemeanor to a violation, which carries lower fines and won't appear on criminal records. Past offenders can have their records expunged, too. [New York Law Journal]

>>> He admitted smoking pot in the past. Now a California man can't get back into the U.S. Jose Palomar traveled to Mexico as part of the final steps in his journey to get a green card. During a required physical he admitted he used to smoke marijuana. Now the feds have blocked his return to his wife and four kids in Riverside County, where he has lived since he was a boy. [Orange County Register]

>>> If you get a cultivation license in Pennsylvania, you'd better produce. Pennsylvania revoked the grow license of Agrimed Industries after the western state company failed to produce any medical marijuana for sale. A surprise inspection found big problems at the grow site, including "the possibility that some of those plants had been diverted to the underground market." [The Philadelphia Inquirer]

>>> More than 500 Michigan communities have said no to cannabis. As of last week, 522 of the state's 1,773 cities and towns opted out of the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act, the recreational use measure approved by voters last year. Some of the municipalities' leaders say they need more time to study how, and whether, a local market might work. [The Detroit News]

>>> The Buckeye State has welcomed CBD. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation Tuesday that legalizes hemp and takes hemp-derived CBD off the state's controlled substances list. Ohio officials will write regulations for hemp growing over the next six months. [Cincinnati Enquirer]

 

Mark Your Calendar: 'Wine and Weed' & More

Aug. 3-4 - The U.S. Cannabis Conference & Expo takes place in Miami, Florida. Scheduled speakers include Akerman special counsel Zachary Kobrin; Moffa, Sutton, & Donnini partner Paula Savchenko and Holly Bell, director of cannabis at the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Aug. 9 - The Wine & Weed Symposium will be held in Santa Rosa, California. Speakers on the agenda include Marc Hauser, vice chair of Reed Smith's cannabis law practice; Joe Rogoway of Rogoway Law Group and Omar Figueroa of the Law Offices of Omar Figueroa.

Aug. 12-13 - The 2019 Hemp Business Summit will take place in Portland, Oregon. Scheduled speakers include Lowell Schiller, principal associate commissioner for policy at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; and Christopher Strunk, of counsel at Beveridge & Diamond.