The State Law Receiverships as a Bankruptcy Alternative and a Necessity for Cannabis-Related Businesses

Erik B. Weinick, a member of the firm, is co-founder of Otterbourg P.C.’s Privacy & Cybersecurity Department and also practices in the firm’s Litigation, as well as Restructuring and Bankruptcy Departments. He is admitted to practice in both Florida and New York.

Throughout his career, Mr. Weinick has represented a wide array of fiduciaries, commercial and financial firms, entrepreneurs, and individuals on matters including: privacy/cybersecurity, bankruptcy, fraud, entertainment and securities/commodities.

In addition, Mr. Weinick is a member of the U.S. Secret Service NY/NJ Cyber Fraud Task Force Steering Committee, a New York State Court Certified Fiduciary, a certified CIPP-US privacy professional, and a member of the Advisory Board of Agnes Intelligence, Inc., an artificial intelligence firm.

He received his B.S. in 1998 from Cornell University and his J.D. in 2001 from Cornell Law School.

Heidi N. Urness is a member with McGlinchey Stafford PLLC in Seattle and co-chairs its cannabis practice group. She advises individuals, entrepreneurs, financiers, producers, processors, retailers and other categories of licensees, as well as cannabis ancillary business and service providers, as they navigate this highly regulated industry.

Ms. Urness guides startups that need to establish operations, attract investment and obtain the necessary licenses. She also counsels retailers on real estate, banking and employment matters, and works with investors interested in professionally run and compliant cannabis ventures. In addition, she advises companies that support the marijuana industry, like trucking and transportation providers and packaging designers and suppliers, and she supports clients in a wide variety of disputes and litigation. Mr. Urness assists clients with developing business plans that serve as foundations for winning applications and licenses, creating new business entities, often in the form of financing vehicles, and building out operating agreements that follow strict codes to maximize the future inflow of capital to the business operations and outflow of profits to members. In addition, she works with businesses already involved in the sector to formalize their existing projects and grow them into successful and compliant businesses.

Ms. Urness has been named one of the 30 Powerful Cannabis Litigators You Should Know in mg Magazine for 2018, as one of the Top 200 Global Cannabis Lawyers in the Cannabis Law Report from 2020-23, as a Washington Super Lawyers “Rising Star” in Cannabis Law for 2023, and as one of Washington’s Top 100 Verdicts in 2021 in Best of the Bar for 2021.

She is a member of the International Cannabis Bar Association (INCBA), a member and featured speaker for Women Grow: Cultivating Cannabis Leaders, and a member of the Washington State Bar Association’s Editorial Advisory Committee and Cannabis Law Section, the National Cannabis Industry Association’s Banking & Financial Services Committee, Women Employed in Cannabis and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). She also served on Law360’s Cannabis Editorial Advisory Board in 2023.

Mr. Urness received her B.A. in 2008 in psychology and journalism from Wake Forest University and her J.D. in 2011 from the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Camisha L. Simmons is the founder, managing member, and principal of Simmons Legal PLLC in Dallas, which she founded after practicing in New York and Dallas for nearly eight years as an attorney with several large global law firms.

She has experience representing for-profit companies, nonprofit companies and political subdivisions in, among other legal matters, bankruptcy, corporate restructuring, creditors’ rights, business transactions and litigation.

Ms. Simmons is listed in the 30th edition of The Best Lawyers in America for Bankruptcy and Creditor/Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law. She also was selected by The National Black Lawyers, a professional and educational organization comprised of an elite group of highly successful and influential African American lawyers in the U.S., for inclusion in its list of the top 100 African American attorneys in Texas, The National Black Lawyers Top 100 (2019-22).

In 2018, Ms. Simmons was recognized as one of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in Dallas by the Texas Diversity Council, and in 2013, Texas Lawyer named her to its inaugural list of Legal Leaders on the Rise, which honors Texas’s 25 most promising lawyers under the age of 40 whose accomplishments distinguish them from their peers. In addition, she has been named a Texas Super Lawyer, Texas Rising Star, New York Metro Super Lawyer and New York Metro Rising Star by Super Lawyers, and as a Top 40 Under 40 attorney by National Black Lawyers.

After graduating from law school, Ms. Simmons clerked for Hon. Mary F. Walrath in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Prior to her legal career, she served on active duty in the U.S. Army from 1999-2003.

Ms. Simmons received her B.B.A. from Campbell University, her M.Ed. from the University of Maryland, College Park and her M.B.A. and J.D. magna cum laude from Texas Tech University.

Joel Cohen is a Managing Director in the Disputes, Compliance, & Investigations group and a managing partner of the firm’s New York office.

Joel has more than two decades of experience in the dispute, forensic and insolvency practice areas, most specifically in the financial services and asset-management industries. Mr. Cohen’s experience encompasses a number of significant cross-border insolvency and litigation matters, and he has served as financial advisor and consulting expert to fiduciaries, court-appointed receivers, monitors, offshore liquidators, and bankruptcy and litigation trustees in a variety of litigation consulting services, including asset-tracing, fraud, Ponzi schemes, industry custom and practice for investment managers, and forensic analysis.

He has been acting as financial advisor to receivers over several SEC and NYAG receiverships of private-equity investment structures, as well as the financial consultant to the monitor appointed over the Trump Organization for the New York Attorney General actions. Most recently, Mr. Cohen testified successfully in the Celsius chapter 11 confirmation hearing in the Southern District of New York, speaking to the valuation of the $3.2 billion dollar digital asset, institutional loan and alternative investment portfolio of the debtor.

Before joining Stout, Mr. Cohen was a managing director at a boutique financial advisory and consulting firm. Prior to that, he spent a number of years with a global financial advisory firm in its Dispute & Investigations group, where he helped manage a team of CPAs, economists, attorneys and financial professionals in executing a diverse array of complex engagements related to the various hedge fund/private-equity fraud, insolvencies and litigations that characterized the global financial crisis of 2008-09.

Previously, Mr. Cohen was a leader in the disputes practice at a Big 4 accounting firm and senior vice president at a prominent investment bank in charge of internal investigations. He also served as Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York from 1992-99, where he supervised its Business/Securities Fraud Unit. Mr. Cohen has experience within the offshore world, regularly handling cases out of the Caribbean. He received his B.A. in economics with a focus on accounting from Rutgers University.