The Haze: Key Legal Issues for Cannabis Businesses

Janea J. Hawkins is an Associate in the Washington, D.C. Region office of Jackson Lewis P.C. Ms. Hawkins has a blend of government and private practice experience representing government agencies and private employers in a wide array of employment litigation.

Ms. Hawkins regularly defends management in federal and state court; administrative claims of harassment; retaliation and discrimination claims on the basis of age, race, sex, and disability; wrongful discharge and breach of contract issues; and covenant not to compete disputes. She has also represented employers in Department of Labor audits and Office Safety and Health Administration investigations. Additionally, she regularly counsels clients in best employment practices, affirmative action policies and compliance; and frequently conducts internal investigations into allegations of employee misconduct, including sexual harassment.

Prior to joining Jackson Lewis, Ms. Hawkins worked with a small D.C. based employment litigation firm and as an assistant attorney general at the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia Personnel and Labor Relations Section, where she served as lead counsel in a wide array of employment matters before various administrative agencies and the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

While attending law school, Ms. Hawkins was a symposium editor and published member of the Public Interest Law Reporter. She also received the Cooney Conway Fellowship, a prestigious scholarship for law students that demonstrate great promise in trial advocacy and the Commencement Public Service Award.

Christopher is the International Tax Senior Associate at Deloitte US.

David E. Benkert is a Senior Managing Director at Ankura, based in Los Angeles. For over two decades he has been providing clients solutions to their financial accounting and compliance oversight issues. David led forensic investigations, provided litigation support, expert witness testimony, and post investigation remediation guidance. These activities have included financial analysis, forecasting and planning, financial accounting, and whistleblower investigations for management and boards of directors. David frequently works with boards of directors to develop oversight and compliance plans. He has worked for pubic and non-public companies, not for profit organizations, as well as government entities. David is a Certified Public Accountant as well as being certified in Financial Forensics.

A nationally recognized insurance coverage litigator, Lorie handles all aspects of complex, commercial litigation and arbitration. Lorie has advised clients on a wide range of liability coverages, including insurance for environmental, employment, directors and officers, fiduciary, property damage, cyber, and other liabilities. She also handles various types of first-party property insurance claims, including claims under boiler and machinery, business-interruption, contingent business-interruption, extra expense and other related coverages.

Lorie has handled and tried cases in state and federal trial and appellate courts across the country and in arbitrations in the United States and abroad. At issue in these cases typically have been millions of dollars of insurance coverage for products and environmental liability, silicone gel breast implant claims, and other types of liability. Most recently, she obtained a settlement worth millions of dollars under D&O and E&O policies bought by a national nonprofit facing RICO and other high-stakes claims. She served as lead trial counsel for policyholder in an action enforcing CGL insurance coverage for the then-largest property damage class action settlement ever. The National Law Journal called that jury’s verdict one of the “most significant jury verdicts” of the year. She has also handled many other matters in litigation, arbitration, and settlement negotiations, recovering, collectively, billions of dollars for her clients.

Lorie is co-author of Insurance Coverage Litigation, an in-depth legal treatise first published by Aspen Law & Business in 1997 and updated annually. She co-authored a second book, entitled Liability Insurance in International Arbitration: The Bermuda Form, which won the 2012 Book Prize from the British Insurance Law Association for “outstanding contributions to the literature on insurance,” and is recognized as the seminal work on the issue of Bermuda Form arbitration. She was invited to serve as an Adviser to the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law, Liability Insurance, a position she has held since 2010.

A partner in the insurance coverage practice, Lorie’s clients say she “is very good at explaining complicated issues, and then distilling them for commercial use,” according to Chambers USA 2016, which ranks her in the upper echelons of her practice nationwide. She also was named a Top Ten Super Lawyer in DC for 2014 and 2015, among other recognitions.

Lorie writes and speaks extensively on insurance coverage, technology, and litigation. In addition to her legal practice, she is active in diversity and inclusion matters and has represented many individuals and groups pro bono, including policyholders denied health care coverage and victims of human trafficking. In 2007, she obtained one of the first money judgments in the country under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, after a trial in the federal court in the District of Columbia.

Lorie currently serves on the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association (ABA) and as Treasurer of the DC Bar Foundation, the largest funder of legal services in the DC area. She is very proud of her service in 2008-2009 as President of the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia (“WBA”) and her role in helping to organize the WBA’s centennial celebrations in 2016-2017. She helped to found the American College of Coverage and Extracontractual Counsel and served as its second President in 2013-2014. She served as national Policyholder Chair of the Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee of the ABA Section of Litigation, 2000-2003.

Lorie is admitted to practice in the US Supreme Court, US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, US District Court for the District of Columbia, US District Court for the District of Maryland, US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. She ran for attorney general in the District of Columbia’s first-ever election for that position in 2014.