Welcome to the 5th Edition of the Global Top 200 Cannabis Lawyers 2024 – 2025 published by Cannabis Law Report & Cannabis Law Journal.
We have compiled the lawyers and law firms we believe, to be the top 200 cannabis practitioners & practices around the world via our annual survey of clients and lawyers in the cannabis legal services sector as well as our personal editorial decisions based on our reporting of the industry on a daily basis for the past eight + years.
In the directory we do not rank lawyers within the top 200, instead we aim to do our utmost to balance client recommendations and editorial decisions with as wide a geographical spread as possible to allow prospective clients to source cannabis, hemp & CBD legal specialists in the jurisdictions they wish to do business.
Cannabis practices can broadly be subdivided into 3 categories
Respected solo or under 5 partner firms with solid local state experience, history and clients
Early adopter firms who specialise in cannabis offering full service client support with an emphasis on state based compliance services
Existing full service law firms who have drawn individuals with specific skill-sets from their existing practice to build national full service cannabis practices.
Regional Analysis
North America
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the legal cannabis professionals listed in the directory are still from North America.
Based in a number of specific cities and developing over the last decade as centres of excellence, as the regulated cannabis & hemp sector matures further.
We would highlight, as we have for the last few years, Denver, New York Los Angeles & San Francisco as the premier centers of excellence with Washington DC, Portland (OR) , Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Miami & Las Vegas following close behind.
As of 1 September 2024 and the publication of this our 5th edition, it is worth noting that 47 states have now regulated medical cannabis as well as the District of Columbia, and 3 territories, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. and 24 states now operate an adult use market.
With regulation in most US states of one sort and another the country now has a multitude of lawyers with more than 5-8 years experience in the market and increasing amount of lawyers who have worked with cannabis for over a decade.
If you dig a little deeper into the directory and compare to previous editions you will also note that US lawyers are an ever more dominant force in the cannabis legal sector around the world.
The US public sector at state level (and Federal in some undefined future) needs these individuals but simply can’t afford to pay them enough or let them have the decision making control they need to sort out an increasingly chaotic public sector in states like Massachusetts, New York and Washington DC. Watch out Florida is next!
Kudos to California, Oregon, Washington Nevada, Maine, Colorado for building on mistakes learnt but even these states will have to have great communication between their cannabis commissions,. Legislatures and governor’s office to ensure that the good ship cannabis stays on course.
As we noted in last year’s edition the Canadian gold rush is well and truly over and many of the teams assembled at the bigger law firms in Canada have either disbanded or are doing a fraction of the work they were doing.
It is worth noting that Canada is now a major exporter of medical cannabis to multiple markets around the world and looking at the continued flattening of the domestic market I would expect exports to rise in 2024-2025.
Europe
The big development in the EU over the past 12 months is Germany’s legalised market for medical cannabis and an adult use market in play with specific provisos.
The Ukraine has recently legalised medical cannabis, the Netherlands are still in stop start mode with various adult use trials, the Czech Republic is slowly working its way towards some form of regulation and are as yet undecided on what that is.
Italy appears to be backtracking on regulation, France is still in discussion mode and only with regard to medical and Poland after a period of rapid medical growth looks to be tightening some of its regulatory reins.
Spain, Portugal and Malta. I see little change from where we were on publication of the 4th edition of the directory.
As a legal centre for cannabis and hemp related work London was, as I have noted in previous editions, early out of the blocks and apart from Berlin it is still the major European transactional centre, especially so for CBD work.
But lack of progress in Westminster on medical cannabis and as yet no discussion of adult use suggests that there’ll actually be more activity in Germany and other parts of the EU than the UK for the foreseeable future.
There are a few more UK lawyers than last year applying a large part of their practice to medical cannabis, CBD and in some cases hemp work, but I would suggest we aren’t going to see any major changes in the next 12 months, once again, as the new UK government will not be placing cannabis on a priority list anytime soon.
Super Lawyers
Although German, British, Spanish & Portuguese lawyers are still growing their practices we’ve noticed a trend of what I would call US Cannabis Super Lawyers creating deep and lasting relationships around the world connecting North America to LATAM, Asia and especially Europe.
These lawyers tend to see the US as one element of a global business and can provide advice via the decade plus experience they have from working daily in markets south of the border and across the Atlantic.
With CVs’ that encapsulate regulation, legislation, compliance, policy advice, M&A, IP, tax; you name it, the list goes on forever. Their contacts in government and business always growing in the US and international market over the last decade.
Some of these individuals have already been drawn into larger firms, private sector and in rare cases the public sector.
LATAM
Just over a decade ago in 2012 Uruguay announced it would be the first country in the world to legalize full ‘adult-use’ cannabis. In large part, the move was aimed at replacing links between organized crime and the cannabis trade with more accountable government regulation.
These were the first steps in the creation of the global regulated cannabis economy across Latin America. Since then, we have seen cannabis policy reform and commercial markets initiated across LatAm in: Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Paraguay, and beyond.
It is worth noting lawyers and the legal profession throughout the continent have led the charge in this regard. In doing so, this region has served as a model for the world regarding the required flexibility in regulating cannabis, a plant which has come out of the illicit market and into the mainstream.
It is also worth reiterating that it is active lawyers within these countries who have taken on the difficult job of crafting, enacting, and evaluating regulations concerning the business licensing, cultivation, processing, and distribution of cannabis and its derivatives, globally. These lawyers have been essential in nearly every jurisdiction across the region in creating the rules, the guidelines, the business opportunities, and the legal documentation for this brand-new industry.
With some of the most well-established international cannabis companies headquartered across the region, the sector is embarking on a pathway to compete on a global scale.
Over the next 12 months my crystal ball tells me to watch the push for a comprehensive medical program in Brazil, further developments on the legislative front from both Mexico & Colombia as well smaller countries such as Guyana and Costa Rica aiming for a more robust regulatory environment.
Also, let’s not forget the Caribbean, small jurisdictions that have been relatively progressive over the last 5 years. In many cases it’s a combination of medical and a tourism approach that supports their cannabis markets. As yet I haven’t been able to identify any particular lawyers who work exclusively in cannabis matters but hopefully by our 6th edition that will have changed.
Middle East
There are really only two markets in the region Israel and the Lebanon.
This year the ever more precarious political situation suggests to me that Israel’s legal medical market won’t really develop much on the regulatory side but I’d expect to see growth in production and R and D in the country. In the Lebanon it is most likely politics will play its hand and the black market status quo will deepen further.
Africa
A legal constitutional ruling subsequently signed off by the president just prior to the country’s latest general election has led South Africa towards, not only a regulated medical and limited adult use market, but also the opportunity to develop a sustainable cannabis industry. This is being reflected by an ever growing number of legal professionals applying a percentage of their practices to the sector.
Zimbabwe, Botswana Malawi may not be moving at bullet train speed with their programs but it doesn’t appear they are going backwards. I would though apply the word opaque to their process!
In West Africa, Ghana, Senegal & Nigeria, debates are slowly progressing with Ghana appearing to lead the pack.
In central Africa Rwanda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_Rwanda) is making strides.
In North Africa, Morocco is once again really the only jurisdiction that’s moving forward and with recent announcements of legal exports, the king pardoning farmers previously prosecuted for cannabis production and creating an environment for more farmers to operate in a legal environment I would expect to hear some interesting updates from the country in 2025.
Information out of Africa can be rather difuse at times but on the surface it appears there’s much more discussion of cannabis and hemp by the political and business elites across the continent and even some cannabis brands from Europe are being public about their involvement on the continent.
Will Africa be the cannabis good news story of 2025?
Only time will tell.
Pacific Region
In the Asia Pacific there are still really only two jurisdictions to highlight.
Thailand has been on somewhat of a rollercoaster ride over the last 12 months with a huge growth in adult use and tourism cannabis alongside the country’s medical program. This has created some level of political tension and now the powers that be are looking for a more conservative approach to cannabis regulation. Nobody is quite sure what that is at the moment but it looks like a rolling back of adult use and the plethora of dispensaries to a medical market that will also through medical card registration allow for defacto adult use.
But, as they say, a week is a long time in politics.
At the moment crunch time for decisions appears to be slated for Q.1 2025.
Australia’s development of a pharmaceutical medical industry approach has grown the country’s market exponentially over the last 12 months with many new players and an increasing reliance on imported medical cannabis. There has been some pushback from federal government bodies like the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) and some state health departments applying the screws on some medial practitioners. Government, both federal and state, don’t appear to want to think too hard about either curbing or expanding legislation & regulations so it looks like more of the same for the foreseeable future.
It is worth noting that Australia is the only country in the world with elected cannabis party politicians, 1 in West Australia, 2 in Victoria and one in NSW. Their continued presence in legislatures might not change the status quo but is, we hope, slowly educating members of the major parties to the need for change.
But it still isn’t a market that can yet support more than half a dozen lawyers, most of whom transact cannabis work as part of a larger practice.
Although NZ voted against legalisation in a referendum a few years back I do note increased commercial activity in the country and also a modicum of interest in pacific nations as to building hemp markets.
Summary
In the US, as we have said for the past few years, the number of legal professionals working in the regulated cannabis sector has grown immeasurably specialising in every aspect of legal practice. This past year Ohio, Minnesota. etc et has meant a growth in cannabis practicing lawyers in those states.
The FDA won’t be making a decision on re-scheduling until after the presidential election. If they do there will be an uptick in demand for legal services.
Compliance is still, in the main, the name of the game because of the state by state approach. We are seeing more IP specialists and also the industry merging with other sectors such as F&B and all that that entails.
Also an ever-growing area for some practices is DUI as states bring in ever stricter and more thought out regimes for cannabis driving enforcement. The same applies to employment law and testing regimes. See more of this in 2025.
I would also like to highlight a positive result of seeing more women not only working in cannabis practices but starting their own firms and leading cannabis practices nationally. We aren’t quite at 50/50 yet (the sooner we get there the better) but I hope that the make up of this year’s edition of the directory goes some way to illustrating these changes.
Names to mention would include amongst many others. In no particular order: Hilary Bricken, Heidi Urness, Meital Manzuri, Shannett Thompson (UK), Samantha Myers (UK), Chelsie Spencer, Lisa Pittman, Mollie Hartman, Dr Teresa Nicoletti (Australia), Courtney Barnes, Courtney Moran, Hannah King, Janet Jackim, Margret Knitter (Germany), Pamela Bubb (South Africa) & Susan Burns.
This past year has seen big developments in the divide between the “cannabis” industry and the “hemp industry for human consumption”. Whatever side of the various argument(s) you fall depends, but we would highlight two lawyers who really understand the distinctions, Rod Kight and Jonathan Miller.
New York once again has dominated the news bylines for cannabis and not always because the news is good. It was always going to be an important market for the legal sector but the endless back and forth especially with regard to licensing has meant that the city and state will remain a market with many opportunities for years to come. I’d highlight amongst others David Feldman, Andrew Cooper and Joshua Bauchner.
As I wrote last year, we are also now seeing the first generations of law students coming out of college and deciding on a fully fledged career in cannabis law. Quite a few are now 1st, 2nd and 3rd year lawyers and are making waves. I’m as interested in their work as I am those who have practiced cannabis for 10-15 years or more and have accordingly given some up and coming lawyers a place in the top 200. Can you spot them?
And finally to our superstars. As I have already mentioned I don’t rank lawyers in the Top 200 but there are a few superstars out there. I’ve mentioned some already but there are a few more individuals out there that I can’t finish up without mentioning them by name.
First, I am going with Bob Hoban because although he’s no longer practicing law on a day to day basis he’s working on a number of fronts to ensure that he provides catalysts for change with regard to cannabis and law not just in the US but globally, his quiet ceaseless energy on this front is something to behold.
Next although they aren’t a double act I will mention Shane Pennington & Matthew Zorn for their work over the last 12 months not only with regard to cannabis but also psychedelics. They hone amazing research skills, litigation prowess and plain speaking to change the way those in power understand cannabis regulation. It’s like Woodward & Bernstein have matched up with the moral clarity of the late Justice Ginsberg to power ranger their way through the halls of power to engender change.
Last but not least I have a very soft spot for Pac NW lawyers and especially Aaron Pelley, Andrew De Weese and Kevin Jacoby. They have all achieved something of major note and quietly in the last 14 months. That is, exiting succesfully from their previous firms that they (co) -founded and in the process ensured that all their staff were properly placed and looked after in the process, no mean feat in this day and age.
They all still serve their clients in the most mature cannabis market on the planet without any hoopla. Kevin also practices in water rights law as well as cannabis law a huge plus in my book. Aaron is recognised as a top 100 US trial lawyer and used to be in a punk rock band before turning to law, never mind the plethora of lawyers that he nurtured at Cultiva law who have gone on to bigger things. Years ahead of others (2022) Andrew filed a suit against the Oregon governor that made the state overturn a section of Oregon law that prohibits state-licensed operators from shipping cannabis across state lines and you can be assured that he’s working on litigation as we speak that will change things for the sector years ahead of time.
These are the lawyers I’d want in my corner, complete lack of ego, years of industry experience, razor sharp intellect and a quiet social conscience that actually engenders change rather than just talking about it.
Congratulations to all the practitioners in the 5th Edition (2024-2025) of The Global Top 200 Cannabis Lawyers and thank you to all of you, especially those I haven’t been able to mention by name.
Keep doing what you do.
To paraphrase the great Chuck D , “Turn It Up, Bring the Noise”.
Normalisation is getting closer because of all of you.
Sean Hocking
Editor – Global Top 200 Cannabis Lawyers
Sean Hocking