8:00am-9:00am Registration, Breakfast, and Networking

9:00am-10:40am Protect Your Assets - Success in Cannabis Staffing, Compliance, Branding, and IP- Even before fully launching, cannabis startups need the right foundation. Too often, startups neglect proper human resources and branding protections. Success starts with the right professionals, the right employees, and the right protections for branding and intellectual property. Learn how to identify and retain skilled staff, all while maintaining employment law and regulatory compliance. Discover how, and why, to obtain trademark and patent protection for cannabis and hemp IP from day one, and how to safeguard and leverage it every day thereafter.

10:50am-11:50am Crafting a Winning License Application- It takes a village to create a successful state or local cannabis license application package. Learn about the experts necessary to ensure approval of a local and state license application and how to handle some of the more complicated regulatory compliance issues faced by applicants.

12:00pm-1:00pm Breaking Ground: The Potential Federal Rescheduling of Cannabis- Learn from leading experts what the Department of Health and Human Services' recommendation to the Drug Enforcement Agency to reschedule cannabis to Schedule III may mean; what are the potential implications for the industry, legalization movement, and broader justice reform; what still needs to happen before rescheduling may happen; and what do we do after to pursue cannabis legalization nationwide.

1:10pm-2:10pm Lunch

2:20pm-3:20pm Protecting Privilege in the Huddle: Kovel and Related Attorney-Client Privilege Doctrines- Given the complexities and constant intersection between business advice and tax or other skilled advice, attorneys are constantly navigating the waters of attorney client privilege when working with other essential advisors. This panel, comprised of experienced corporate and litigation attorneys as well as accounting professionals, will zoom in on the legal doctrines that protect our clients' privilege and outline best practices for managing these team discussions so that you can be sure your communications aren't the weak link in an otherwise strong team effort.

3:30pm-5:10pm Cannabis Banking, Lending, the Safer Banking Act, and Distressed Workouts- Walk through 360 degrees of cannabis banking and insolvency with experts including a cannabis retail chain owner, bankers, a receiver, and financial services and insolvency attorneys. Learn how to obtain and maintain competitive financial services, and leverage depository accounts into obtaining loans. Find out how to navigate a distressed financial or operational situation, including the availability of state court receiverships, assignments for the benefit of creditors, and bankruptcy. Lastly, get the facts about what the Safer Banking Act will, and will not, do for cannabis financing and insolvency.