In the Media

McGlinchey Stafford Opens Seattle Office With 3 Attorneys

March 19, 2024

Law360 Pulse ran a feature on McGlinchey’s new Seattle office, including an interview with Heidi Urness, the Seattle Office Managing Member. Heidi detailed the services the office offers and the attorney’s experience advising cannabis businesses.

Companies that have been around for a decade or more in Washington are looking for legal help with mergers and acquisitions, Urness said. Other issues beyond licensing and regulation include partnerships and debt and equity deals, as well as contracts that include arbitration or choice of law clauses, she said.

Urness said cannabis companies also are facing more employment-related issues. These include workplace health and safety enforcement by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which investigated a Massachusetts cannabis processing plant after a worker died in 2022 from an asthma attack.

“These are sophisticated issues that folks coast-to-coast need to deal with, but I don’t think they realize yet that these issues are maturing from a legal side as well,” said Urness, who joined McGlinchey in Seattle in 2022 and had worked out of her former office in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

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