Cannabis industry veteran launches new, women-owned law firm to focus on the New York and New Jersey markets
As New York and New Jersey roll out their adult-use cannabis programs, many of the region’s top brands are turning to their attorneys as they seek stability amid the turmoil.
Enter Rudick Law Group, a new women-owned, boutique law firm, headquartered in Manhattan with an office across the Hudson River, in Jersey City, New Jersey. Although the law firm is new, its attorneys are veterans of practicing law and of the cannabis industry.
With 10 years of experience representing clients in a variety of intellectual property, business, securities, licensing, Internet/media and land use and zoning disputes, Lauren Rudick is the firm’s managing principal. Rudick started working in the cannabis space in 2015, initially using her litigation skills to keep clients out of legal trouble and later reinventing herself as a commercial and secured transactions attorney. But with the cannabis practice growing rapidly, Rudick decided she needed more administrative control to better serve her clients. And with the highly anticipated New York adult-use market finally launching, Rudick took the leap, launching Rudick Law Group to serve cannabis and other related industries such as agricultural technology and psychedelics, with a dedicated focus on social equity and small business licensing applicants in New York and New Jersey.
Origins in Activism
Citing a “healthy” relationship with the plant for her entire adult life, Rudick has been providing legal representation to cannabis businesses since 2015, though she first arrived in the cannabis industry in 2009 as a patient advocate for her mother’s end-of-life care.
Rudick’s mother suffered from ampullary cancer, a rare type of pancreatic cancer, and was treated at the University of Southern California. During that time, Rudick grew close with the owner of the local dispensary where her mother obtained medical cannabis. She learned about the legal issues that dispensaries face, many of which were rooted in land-use and zoning, which comprised a significant portion of Rudick’s litigation practice. Rudick returned to New York with a rejuvenated sense of purpose, keeping a watchful eye on legalization initiatives as they slowly took off across the United States.
When New York legalized medical cannabis in 2014, creating one of the nation’s most restrictive and competitive medical programs, Rudick’s litigation clients sought to invest in the nascent cannabis industry. At the time, few attorneys on the East Coast — and virtually none from the big-name law firms that high-net-worth individuals, investors and small funds would typically engage — had the experience or appetite for risk needed to take on cannabis-related legal work.
Rudick and her then-boss (who later became her partner) formed a cannabis law practice. Combining her knowledge and familiarity with cannabis trends and upturns in the industry with her diverse background in corporate law, litigation and land-use and zoning, Rudick embraced the first-to-market opportunity and began to invent systems of due diligence that were customized to the cannabis industry, assisting clients responsibly deploy capital in emerging markets and competitive application processes.
Soon, Rudick was also representing cannabis business license applicants and operators, as well as ancillary businesses and legalization initiatives, delving into all aspects of startup law, investor readiness, intellectual property protection and real estate transactions. She and her team have helped cannabis clients secure business licenses in a variety of state-legal jurisdictions throughout the country.
Already well-known for her licensing work, Rudick in 2017 put back on her litigation hat and convinced her then-partner to take on a massive federal lawsuit, on a pro bono basis, against Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the DEA, the Department of Justice and the federal government in an effort to deschedule cannabis on constitutional grounds. The groundbreaking lawsuit, Washington v. Sessions (later Washington v. Barr), was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020 and garnered overwhelming support from industry stakeholders, including members of Congress and preeminent cannabis researchers and scientists, helping shape the dialogue happening within the broader legalization movement.
Rudick is also a regular contributor to Marijuana Venture magazine, sits on the board of directors for Breeder’s Best and is a board member and treasurer for the International Cannabis Bar Association. She has been recognized as a leading lawyer in the cannabis industry by several publications, including Chambers and Partners, The National Law Journal and Marijuana Business Daily, and has been featured in numerous media outlets, including Forbes, CNBC and Rolling Stone.
An Experienced Team
From left to right: Lauren Rudick, Fatima Afia, Kelly Whyman and Jessica Gonzalez.
The firm’s two associates, Fatima Afia and Jessica Gonzalez, each bring their own set of accolades and accomplishments as young female attorneys in the cannabis industry.
Afia and Rudick “grew up” together as young professionals, working together for nearly 12 years, with Afia serving first as a paralegal, then a law clerk and finally as an associate at the same law firm where Rudick was a junior associate-turned-partner. Also like Rudick, Afia began her legal career as a business/commercial and land-use/zoning litigator, which provides a unique foundation and advantage for transactional practice.
“Litigation is a strong deterrent for the risks cannabis operators seek to take, and it’s clear by the contracts we frequently negotiate, that many transactional attorneys do not properly think through dispute scenarios,” Rudick says.
Afia first ventured into the cannabis industry in 2017 as a member of the team that litigated Washington v. Barr, successfully wrangling support from a diverse group of industry stakeholders in the bid to appeal that case to the United States Supreme Court. In 2018, Afia presented public testimony before Massachusetts’ cannabis regulators, arguing in support of expanding the state’s social equity program for all women- and minority-owned businesses. Afia’s testimony was cited by at least one regulator as “instrumental” to the decision to expand the scope of priority licensing in Massachusetts to provide an expedited application review for women- and minority-owned businesses.
Over the past three years, Afia’s practice has increasingly focused on cannabis matters of regulatory compliance, corporate governance, commercial transactions, state licensing and public policy. In her shift to transactional law, Afia has written and worked on several successful state licensing applications in a variety of jurisdictions including New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Afia is also the co-chair of the Continuing Legal Education Committee of the International Cannabis Bar Association.
Gonzalez and Rudick began working together in 2021. Though Gonzalez was hired as an employee, Rudick jokes that Gonzalez’s employment was more of an “acquisition” as Gonzalez is a successful trademark lawyer, legalization and social equity advocate, business consultant and educator in the cannabis industry with a major social media presence.
In the New Jersey cannabis industry, Gonzalez is something of a household name, having shaped state-legalization efforts and expanded opportunities for social equity and small businesses in the state. Gonzalez led the Social Impact Committee for NJ CAN 2020, which ran one of the most successful campaigns for cannabis legalization in the country. She is called the “mother of micro-licenses,” for having penned aspects of New Jersey’s adult-use legislation, regulations and several local ordinances, making it possible for locally owned micro-businesses to transition to standard businesses upon a certain showing of operational readiness and ensuring that there was no cap on the total number of micro licenses awarded.
Currently, Gonzalez is developing an educational program for the New Jersey Business Action Center, to assist New Jersey business owners in successfully navigating licensing. Gonzalez is also an adjunct professor at Rowan University and Hudson County Community College, teaching cannabis courses to students looking to enter the industry.
Creativity in Serving Clients
The new firm takes a client-centered approach to legal representation, limiting reliance on the billable hour and instead offering a unique monthly subscription, empowering clients to be their own advocates, providing high-quality legal services and increasing overall trust, communication and transparency in the attorney-client relationship.
Rudick Law Group works closely with clients to understand their needs and goals and develop customized legal strategies to help them achieve their goals. Their team offers a holistic approach to legal services in the cannabis industry, specializing in general counsel services, trademark law, corporate governance, state licensing, “legacy-to-legal” transitions, public policy and commercial and business transactions.
“I’m thrilled to stretch out with such a talented, creative and ambitious group of women, each driven to strive for higher knowledge and raise the bar for legal services,” says Rudick. “In the few months that we’ve been working together, we’ve designed novel approaches to legal services, pricing and competition, which are already building trust among our clients.”