Ethics: Balancing Activism and Zealous Advocacy with the Boundaries of the Profession and Evolving Law

Hannah Stitt Related Seminars and Products

Founder & Shareholder

Tectonic Law PC

Hannah Stitt is an intellectual property litigator and the founder of Tectonic Law (based in San Francisco, California). She provides services to businesses and entrepreneurs innovating in the following areas: Health & Wellness (including the cannabis industry), Internet and Information Technology (including cryptocurrency and blockchain industries), Creative Arts & Media (including publishing and digital art), and Environmental Sustainability. Ms. Stitt focuses her practice on litigation and disputes involving brands, trademarks, copyrights, privacy rights and related business claims. Her clients are both domestic and international, and of all sizes from startup to conglomerate.

Ms. Stitt graduated with Honors from the University of California Davis, earning degrees in both Religious Studies and Film Studies. She went on to earn her J.D. from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly Hastings), receiving a certificate of concentration in the area of intellectual property law. She has been named a Super Lawyer/Northern California Rising Star by her colleagues in the legal profession continuously since 2019 (a distinction granted to less than 2.5% of lawyers).

A core value of both Ms. Stitt’s is providing services to folks impacted by the drug war and “left behind” by current medical and recreational markets opening up across the country. Between October 2016 and December 2021, Ms. Stitt was a volunteer member of the Prisoner Advocacy Network (a project of the San Francisco Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild) (PAN). While with PAN, Ms. Stitt assisted California prisoners to navigate the intricacies of the civil administrative legal system in order to meet their basic needs and human rights. This work exposed her to the system-imposed inequities experienced by the US’ most vulnerable population. She brings her pro bono experiences holding the government to account into her day-to-day practice for private clients.

Ms. Stitt was an active member of the Ethics Committee for the International Cannabis Bar Association (INCBA) between January 2018 and December 2022. She contributed significantly to the Ethics Committee’s proposed model rules of professional conduct for attorneys serving clients in regulated cannabis markets, and pushed the committee to develop a model evidentiary rule to protect attorney work product. Her advice and counsel has shaped the market.

Please send her an email, or a message through tectoniclaw.com.

Rachael Dickson Related Seminars and Products

Founder and Visiting Assistant Professor

Catalytic Law and Suffolk University Law School

Rachael Dickson is a trademark attorney with expertise in acquiring federal trademark registrations for cannabis and hemp companies at the USPTO. She regularly advises other trademark attorneys on their applications and searching trademarks using USPTO's TESS (Trademark Electronic Searching System) tool. 

From 2017-2021, Rachael was a trademark examining attorney at the US Patent and Trademark Office, where she specialized in examining cannabis trademarks as part of a select controlled substance work group. In this role, she was awarded a 2020 USPTO Customer Service Award and managed to win a TTAB case for the USPTO in abstentia (In Re Harbor Hemp Company LLC, 2022). Rachael has spoken on cannabis trademark issues on several occasions, most notably as a solo speaker at MJBizCon 2022 ("The NewlyWeed Game: Who Wants a Cannabis Trademark?") and at the Suffolk Law Intellectual Property Conference in 2022 ("High Hopes: Cannabis Trademarks at the USPTO"). 

Rachael is also a visiting assistant professor at Suffolk University Law School, where she runs the Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship Clinic. She is currently working on an article on the lawful use requirement in trademark law which compares the USPTO's current treatment of applications to register cannabis trademarks with the US Patent Office's treatment of applications to register alcohol trademarks during Prohibition (1920-1934). 

Rachael formerly served as contract counsel with PharmaCann in Illinois, where she wrote state license applications for expansion to other states, trained dispensary, cultivation, and security employees on applicable regulations, worked with state agency officials, and performed a million other cannabis business start up tasks (including trimming buds for a few days alongside the founders!). (2015-2016)

Rachael is also a history aficionado who has spoken at TudorCon on three separate occasions (mostly about historical intellectual property). She can be found talking about trademarks, history, and cats primarily on Twitter, but also on Instagram, TikTok, and as of 07/2023, BlueSky and Threads, all under the screen name TudorsandTMs.

Rachael holds a degree in history and minors in electronic journalism and music from George Mason University (2010, cum laude) and a JD and certificate in Cyberlaw from DePaul University Law School (2015, cum laude). She is licensed in Illinois, Washington, DC, and (very soon!) Massachusetts.

Arturo Revilla Related Seminars and Products

Associate

Chevez, Ruiz, Zamarripa y Cia., S.C.

Bilingual and fully trained attorney with an international academic and cultural background. I hold a law degree from law faculty of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and a LLM from the Georg-August Universität Göttingen (Germany). Completed the program International and Comparative Business Law at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Germany. I have broad and solid experience dealing with intellectual property matters (filing & prosecution, contentious, consultancy, transactional, etc.). Likewise, I possess thorough knowledge on IT, privacy, E-commerce and consumer protection affairs.

I approach the cases with a result-oriented, analytical, and practical perspective to comply with any required deadlines and exceed the client’s expectations.

Jeffrey Merk Related Seminars and Products

Partner

Aird & Berlis LLP

With extensive experience in a broad range of corporate finance and commercial matters, Jeffrey offers clients a practical and business-minded approach to solving legal and regulatory challenges. He is skilled at isolating what is truly important in a complex business transaction and in identifying solutions. Jeffrey takes great care in tailoring his service to each client and providing strategic and insightful judgment to effectively further their business objectives.

Jeffrey is co-Practice Group Leader of the firm's Capital Markets Group and co-Chair of the Life Sciences Group. He is also a member of the firm's Corporate/Commercial, Mergers & Acquisitions/Private Equity and International Groups, as well as the Cannabis and Mines & Minerals Groups. He practises corporate law with an emphasis on public and private financings, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and ongoing general corporate and commercial activities. Jeffrey’s experience includes numerous cross-border securities offerings (public and private), acting for U.S. buyers of Canadian entities or assets; acting for U.S. financiers of acquisitions in Canada; acting for Canadian sellers to U.S. buyers, and acting as Canadian counsel in connection with large, internationally-led transactions. He frequently advises mining, private equity, industrial, cannabis and psychedelics clients.

Jeffrey has recently been featured in the media with respect to the legal, regulatory and investment context for psychedelics in Canada.

In 2007, Jeffrey completed a six-month secondment with the Corporate Finance Branch of the Ontario Securities Commission where he was responsible for reviewing and clearing prospectuses and considering applications for relief from the requirements of the Securities Act (Ontario).