Neil M. Willner

Biography

Neil M. Willner is Co-chair of the firm’s Cannabis Group. He focuses his practice on the cannabis industry and provides counsel to hemp and marijuana companies across all parts of the supply chain on regulatory and compliance issues. Neil also handles regulatory compliance, investigatory due diligence, mergers and acquisitions, and litigation matters for firm clients. He advises buyers and sellers on regulatory considerations in mergers and acquisitions in many East Coast states.

Neil also participates on cannabis-related trade association committees including the New York State Bar Association’s Cannabis Law Section where he serves on the Executive Committee and chairs the Regulatory sub-committee, the International Cannabis Bar Association, and the American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp (ATACH). As Regulatory Counsel to ATACH, Neil helps create policy at the state and federal levels. He is working closely with the recently launched ATACH Cannabis Beverage Council to ensure beverages are permissible form factors in upcoming medical and recreational marijuana programs.

Neil is a prolific writer, co-authoring a chapter in the 2020 edition of Thomson Reuters Health Law Handbook, as well as a chapter in the American Health Law Association’s Health Care and the Business of Cannabis Questions and Answers book.

Neil also serves as a trusted expert to media outlets and has been quoted in articles published by the New York Times, the Village Voice, Forbes, and Lawyer.com.

Client Experience

• Working with multi-state cannabis operators on complex regulatory and compliance matters

• Advising third-party technology platforms servicing cannabis businesses

• Hemp cultivators, processors, and innovators

• Cannabis trade associations and state legislatures and regulators on cannabis policy

• Risk management companies insuring the cannabis industry

• New York’s largest hospital networks

• Ecclesiastical institutions and school districts

Representative Matters

• Advise multiple cannabis beverage companies on regulatory and compliance matters.
• Advise multiple companies with their adult-use marijuana applications in various East Coast states.

• Served as regulatory counsel to a Canadian holding company in its purchase of a California marijuana licensee.

• Advise a hemp company on the permissibility of hemp-derived ingredients in regulated marijuana products.

• Advise a nationally recognized hemp-cannabinoid company on regulatory issues surrounding novel cannabinoids.

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• Represented a CBD company against a consumer class-action lawsuit by successfully arguing the applicability of the primary jurisdiction doctrine.

• Counsel multiple hemp-derived cannabinoid businesses on impacts of recent amendments to the PACT Act.

• Argued multiple appeals before the New York Appellate Division, First and Second Departments.