In 2016, Joseph Segilia turned over a new leaf in his decades-long legal career when he moved in-house for the first time as general counsel of Terra Tech Corp.

Segilia transitioned from boutique firm Robinson Brog Leinwand Greene Genovese & Gluck into a role as GC of the company, whose subsidiaries cultivate and distribute medical cannabis. He built a legal department from scratch at the Irvine-based company and in the process, learned to navigate evolving cannabis regulations, including emerging California state rules around the sale of recreational cannabis.

The Recorder affilliate Corporate Counsel spoke with Segilia about his transition in-house, cannabis law and regulation and building a legal team. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Corporate Counsel: When you started, you were the only lawyer at Terra Tech. Was that easier, because you were able to build a department that fit your ideal, or more challenging, because you had to start from scratch?

Joseph Segilia: There are benefits and drawbacks. It was good in the sense of, I had seen a lot of other in-house lawyers when I was at a firm, and I was able to bring some of the benefits I saw from their legal departments with me. I wasn't already confined to a certain kind of procedure or policy.

But it was definitely challenging, having to start from scratch. In terms of things as simple as billing practices. Who reviews bills? How does it happen? It's mundane but the more important things, like how to deal with the board, procedures to communicate with them—those are important. I think overall I like doing it this way. There was less infrastructure so it probably did take more time [to set up the legal department], but now that I've done that it's an easier model.

Coming into an in-house role, you often need to be familiar with a wide range of legal topics, including those you may not have had much experience with at firms. Do you have advice for people who are starting an in-house career and trying to learn more areas of the law?

I did a few things. Luckily I had a somewhat easier transition in some of these areas because the company already had subject matter lawyers for pretty much all of the areas we need them for. Intellectual property, for example—we had a really good outside firm.

I did a couple things. One is it's useful very early on to meet with outside counsel, or to have calls if you can't meet in person, both to get a sense of what matters they are handling, but also, I used it as an opportunity to get free CLE almost. Just to get a very quick summary of trademark law as it applies to cannabis companies, for example. I had them give me a summary of current status of the law, and then I did my own research.

I ended up reading a little bit about California real estate law, California employment law. I would say do a bit of your own research, but also I think most firms are happy to set aside some free time and say, “Here's the partner who was handling matters before you got here, why don't you spend half an hour talking to them and they can give you a summary of what you need to know.”

Did you work with cannabis law at all before joining Terra Tech?

The interesting thing is, even in my head, I distinguish between legal issues for cannabis companies that are not cannabis law and cannabis law itself. So I had not done any cannabis law per se in terms of actually complying with state rules, for example. But I had been involved in work with Terra Tech because they were involved with a client at my previous firm. I was familiar with some of the issues that affected that, but I had not worked with any cannabis companies directly.

Something I've heard from other cannabis industry in-house lawyers is that it's not that different from working in-house in other industries, there's just some added complexity.

Right. And Terra Tech's a public company. So it's 10Qs and 10Ks and they're kind of the same, no matter what the industry is.

That said, are there extra challenges that come with being in-house at a cannabis-related company?

Oh, definitely. Again, not having really had much experience at all with cannabis regulations, the newish California regulations from earlier this year. There are three different agencies, and they each have hundreds of pages of regulations. People who have been doing this in California for years more than me were very familiar with those. Some people were involved in lobbying them, drafting them. I had never read one before. So, starting last year when I actually had to read those, that was a steep learning curve for me. They're very detailed, they deal with every aspect of the business.

What does the cannabis industry deal market look like, from what you've seen?

I would say valuations are very high, still, and they have been, at least for the two years I've been looking at them. One sort of interesting thing that's changed the market a little bit is Canadian companies have become pretty active. They've been making investments and acquisitions in the United States. And at the same time, U.S. companies have been listing in Canada. So they have equity they can use for acquisitions.

But I've been surprised by the lack of M&A activity. I don't know why that is. Maybe because cannabis is still Schedule 1? That might be slowing some of the activity down. Most of the big U.S. investment banks are not involved in the industry, maybe that's a little of it. Despite that, I had expected more transactions among companies than I have actually seen.

You've worked both in the United States and England. Are you using knowledge of international law in your role at Terra Tech?

For me, now it's mostly the U.S. I do keep an eye on Canada, because it's obviously close, and I think a lot of people in the U.S. market are watching, to see what developments are there. But I haven't done anything else internationally at all. I try to keep track of things happening in other countries, but haven't had a reason … to be involved in another country yet.