Kocot Law Represents Cannabis Clients in California, Massachusetts, and New York

Operating a business in a highly regulated industry is never easy. Regulations can vary from state to state, and the ramifications of compliance errors can be significant. So for cannabis operators, a lawyer with expertise in the sector is a necessity. For many businesses in the cannabis industry, Massachusetts-based attorney Ryan Kocot provides that expertise.

Kocot attended law school in Sacramento, California and interned for the public defender’s office there before starting his own practice. Many of his early clients were cannabis operators doing business under California’s Prop 215 medical marijuana initiative. Jurisdictions at all levels of government ignored the statute, however, leading to criminal prosecution of many members of the medical cannabis community.

“I was at a point in my life where I was doing closing arguments in the morning and picking a jury in the afternoon,” Kocot explains in an online interview with IgniteIt. “Like trial after trial after trial at one point in my life, but now mainly transactional work, which is kind of a weird transition to make.”

After the legal landscape in California changed with the passage of Prop 64 in 2016, Kocot began focusing exclusively on cannabis law, including contracts, compliance, and corporate matters.

“When the law changed in California, a lot of the people that I had represented in criminal court were interested in getting their adult use licensing taken care of,” he says. “So now that’s exclusively what I do. I help people with contracts, compliance, corporate, that sort of thing.”

Kocot now serves cannabis clients in three regulated markets: California, Massachusetts, and New York. In addition to expertise with each state’s cannabis rules, he is also able to provide his clients with comprehensive legal advice for all aspects of their businesses.

“It’s not just the cannabis-specific regulations; there are also related, ancillary law that you need to follow,” he explains. “Health and safety is a big one that comes to mind, FTC in terms of advertising and marketing, that sort of thing.”

Kocot is also looking to the future of tech and its applications for his clients. He is currently developing proprietary compliance software called cannabislaw.ai, a new tool designed to automate compliance workflows for cannabis businesses.

For more information about Ryan Kocot’s cannabis law practice, check out his firm’s webpage.