We are proud and excited to announce that our lead Oregon attorney, Vince Sliwoski, has been appointed an Adjunct Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland. Starting in January, Vince will teach an upper level course on Cannabis Law and Policy to second and third year law students. You can read the law schools announcement here and view the course description here.
Lewis & Clark describes Vinces class as follows:
The legal status of cannabis is changing rapidly across the U.S. While cannabis remains a controlled substance federal law, a slight majority of states now have medical and recreational laws permitting some uses. At the same time, cannabinoids (components of cannabis plants that are separate from the psychoactive THC components) have potential for medical and therapeutic uses. There is also a renewed interest in the use of industrial hemp for cheap, resilient materials.
This class covers a wide range of legal issues confronting cannabis, marijuana, and hemp uses. In particular, it surveys the legal aspects of the emerging markets for these substances, using Oregon as its state-level focal point. Topics surveyed in this class include constitutional law, business law, intellectual property, tax, banking, bankruptcy, anti-trust and legal ethics. Expert practitioners in these areas will provide guest lectures to frame the issues for students, who will develop their paper topics under the guidance of the instructor.
With the advent of state level marijuana, the legal community has begun to respond to market demand, including on the critical issue of educating the next generation of industry attorneys. Our firm, Harris Moure has served the industry since 2010 through ourCanna Law Groupand we are honored that Oregons best privatelaw school has recognized our industry leadership by selecting Vince to teach this class.
We also cannot help but use this as an opportunity to reflect onhow far the legal cannabis industry has come in the Northwest. When we first started practicing cannabis law six years ago, there were serious doubts regarding the legal ethics of our providing advice to cannabis businesses. We were of the strong view that if cannabis were to be state legal, state legal businesses deserved legal representation and that providing such representation would be had to be legal. But it took a formal ethics opinion from our state bar to confirm that. For more on the ethics of being cannabis lawyers, check out the following:
- Lawyers, Pot Businesses and Ethics Remain Hazy in Some States
- Representing Cannabis Clients: The Legal Ethics
- Lawyers Can Smoke Pot And Still Practice Law
- Hawaii Changes Ethics Rules for Cannabis Lawyers
- The Federal Governments Ongoing War Against Cannabis; A Bit On Cannabis Lawyer Ethics Too
- Ohio Does Not Allow Attorneys to Advise Medical Marijuana Businesses
- Colorado MJ Attorneys. Legal At Last.
For us, this teaching position is further vindication of what we and other cannabis business attorneys do. On our Canna Law Blog Facebook Page, we often post articles that show how thelegalization of cannabis is leading to the normalization of cannabis. We see Lewis & Clarks appointing Vince to its faculty as another giant step forward towards normalization of cannabis, specifically in the legal arena. And we look forward to the day when such a class will be commonplace at law schools nationwide.
Though we arefine with taking the lead in this practice, we will admit that confirmation by our peers and the academy is very meaningful to us. Wehave always viewed it as part of our mission to help educate the next generation of cannabis lawyers. For that reason, all of our cannabis lawyers speak often in front of law students, lawyers and industry groups. In addition to Vinces frequent ...
