Boston-based law firm Burns & Levinson announced two additions to its team to strengthen its nationally-known cannabis business and law advisory group. Joining the firm are partner Max Borg and associate Douglas Ginn. Both have strong cannabis industry legal expertise.
Burns & Levinson was the first major Boston corporate law firm to develop a cannabis business practice, and has been advising cannabis businesses, entrepreneurs and investors across the country for nearly a decade.
Max Borg
Borg joins the firm from Feuerstein Kulick LLP in New York City, where he represented investment funds, broker dealers, entrepreneurs and business operators in the emerging legal cannabis industry in the U.S. and abroad.
Borg will continue to focus his practice on structuring and offerings of equity and debt securities, mergers and acquisitions, private capital raises and financing, compliance with securities laws, corporate governance and restructuring, and related commercial transactions for companies in the cannabis space. He began his career as a corporate attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP.
Douglas Ginn
Ginn was previously a sixth-year corporate associate at Drummond Woodsum & MacMahon in Portland, Maine, where he focused on the cannabis industry. At Burns & Levinson, Ginn will continue to advise cannabis businesses across a wide range of corporate and transactional matters, including M&A and capital raises.
“We are thrilled to have Max and Doug on our world-class corporate cannabis team,” said Burns & Levinson partner Frank A. Segall, who chairs the firm’s cannabis business and law advisory group with partner Scott Moskol. “They are joining one of our busiest practice groups and their M&A, financing and transactional experience will be a tremendous asset to our team and our clients.”
Moskol added, “Our cannabis practice continues to grow at a rapid pace. We are excited to have both of these talented cannabis lawyers onboard.”
Strong Cannabis Practice
Recent Burns & Levinson cannabis deals include representing Agrify Corp. in its $50 million acquisition of Precision Extraction Solutions and Cascade Sciences in October 2021. In November 2021, the firm represented UL Holdings Inc. (dba as Urbn Leaf), a leading California cannabis retailer, in its sale to Harborside Inc. The Urbn Leaf sale will create the largest and most developed vertically-integrated cannabis platform in the state of California once the deal closes in the first quarter of 2022.
Burns & Levinson also spearheaded the efforts of one of its secured lender clients with enforcing its rights and remedies with respect to a more than $22 million loan made to a Massachusetts vertically integrated cannabis operator, which resulted in the Massachusetts Superior Court, BLS Division, issuing the first-ever court appointed receivership of a cannabis company in Massachusetts.
Burns & Levinson has deep experience in cannabis and hemp/CBD business formation and corporate structuring, private placements, venture capital, M&A, securities, banking issues, fund formation, debt and equity financing, restructuring and receiverships, real estate acquisitions and leasing, intellectual property protection, 280E taxation issues, and cannabis litigation.
The firm is well known for its role in the cannabis banking industry and is among the top law firms in the country handling M&A and high-level corporate and financing deals in the private and public markets in the cannabis market.
