Lawyers say their marijuana clients are a mixed bunch, from pot growers to software developers. Akerman partner Jonathan Robbins says his firm’s marijuana practice counsels nurseries in Florida, private equity groups, financial institutions, dispensaries and cultivators, as well as tracking software and packaging companies that work with marijuana businesses.
“If we’re looking at the marijuana industry as the Gold Rush, the real people who are making the money are those selling the blue jeans, the pickaxes, opening up the brothels,” says Colorado marijuana attorney Rachel Gillette. Though it is illegal in Colorado for a publicly traded company to have an ownership interest in a marijuana business, she says, “there is a big interest from large companies or corporations in some of the ancillary industries that are part of the marijuana industry.”
