Marijuana Business Magazine - February 2018

To determine that curiosity, he evaluates candidates face-to-face. “I will not hire someone whom I have not sat with and asked ques- tions,” he said. He asks the person what he or she knows about the cannabis business, what products are popular and how cannabis is distributed and sold. Heizer wants a candidate who can walk him through the ins and outs of the canna- bis business – from seed to sale. “From my perspective, ‘I don’t know’ is a better answer than faking it. As long as they exhibit a willing- ness to want to learn,” he said. Heizer also prefers an attorney who uses a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. “What a good lawyer has the abil- ity to do is respectfully engage in a debate and respectfully utilize lever- age with the regulators,” he said. “The blowhard lawyers, I’m not really inter- ested in. I’m interested in finesse. I prefer surgeons to table pounders.” Jim Makoso, co-owner and vice president of Lucid Labs – an extrac- tion branding and licensing com- pany with locations in Nevada and Washington state – seeks the best outside legal representation at the most cost-effective price. That includes someone with spe- cialized knowledge of a particular area of the law. “Basically what we look for is someone with the mastery of the specific task we’re trying to accom- plish,” he said. For example, his company helped design a specific software applica- tion for another company that builds extraction equipment. To close the deal, Makoso had to find an attorney who was familiar with intellectual property and patents. “In our industry there isn’t one shoe that fits all,” Makoso said. “We have groups of attorneys that we work with in different aspects of our business.” The best attorneys will always tell you if the subject matter is outside their area of expertise, he added. WHERE TO LOOK While Heizer does have some in- house attorneys, most of his legal team is made up of outside lawyers who are paid a retainer. The first thing he does with any outside attorney who works for another firm is to make sure the top brass there is comfortable dealing with a cannabis company. “I don’t want to spend a long time talking to lawyers that I think would be really good only for them to find out that they’re senior management team in New York City or Washington DC says we really don’t want you doing that. That’s something I learned from experience,” Heizer said. His goal is to recruit from the best national law firms. Ramirez typically relies on word of mouth from other marijuana business owners. He also keeps an eye on cannabis attorneys who often speak at mari- juana industry conferences. If he’s impressed, Ramirez might hire that person on a retainer. “You want to look for people who can speak intelligently about the industry, and that usually comes from big national trade groups or people who speak at the conventions,” he added. “From my experience, there’s really no online board or website or anything.” Makoso often taps his referral network when it comes to anything industry specific, such as obtaining a cannabis cultivation license. “Usually with any good colleague one hand washes the other,” he said. “It’s very much a word-of-mouth situation.” For anything outside of the mari- juana industry, Makoso conducts his own vetting process. For example, if he’s dealing with an intellectual prop- erty matter – such as an extraction process – he looks for law firms that specialize in IP and then winnows the list of potential attorneys. “We’ll go with the group we feel meets our needs the best,” he said. It’s a combination of experience, cost and if the lawyers can work within Makoso’s time frame. “The best attorneys are always busy so you have to pick and choose the ones that can fit you in,” he said. HOW TO WORK WITH A LAWYER Heizer communicates frequently with his outside attorneys. “I’m on the phone or emailing them a couple of times a week, making sure that they’re on task,” he said. “I make them ask me questions and get feedback from me frequently, because that saves me money and gets me better advice.” The main difference between guiding a mainstream attorney and a cannabis attorney is that he’ll ask the non-marijuana lawyers to tour LivWell’s vertically integrated facilities. “I almost invariably bring our counsel to Colorado, show them our operation, walk them through our grow facilities and extraction facili- ties and walk them through our retail. So that they actually understand the business,” he said. Ramirez checks in with his out- side counsel every two weeks. Jim Makoso is co-owner and vice president of Lucid Labs. 96 • Marijuana Business Magazine • February 2018