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Lawyers and Medical Marijuana

What Lawyers Need To Know

While medical cannabis may have been legalized in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, through House Bill SB3 there has not yet been a change to the Pennsylvania state legal ethics rules for Pennsylvania lawyers that governs lawyers who may advise clients in the medical cannabis industry.

Last October, the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations gave opinions that the State Rules of Professional Conduct would have to be amended in order for lawyers to ethically advise clients about the use, sale, and cultivation of marijuana, given its status as a Schedule I controlled substance at the federal level; the use, possession, and transport of which is illegal under the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”).  A month later, in November, the Pennsylvania Bar Association adopted a resolution to amend Rule of Professional Conduct 1.2(d), which presently prohibits attorneys from counseling “a client to engage, or assist a client, in conduct that the lawyer knows is criminal or fraudulent.”  The amendment has been referred to the Disciplinary Board of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, said a spokesman for the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.  The spokesman said that it was his understanding that the proposed amendments would be published for public comment after SB3 passed.

On May 7, the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania released Pa.B. Doc. No. 16-779, featuring a proposed amendment to Rule 1.2(d) and a new addition to the rule itself (changes in bold):

(d) A lawyer shall not counsel a client to engage, or assist a client, in conduct that the lawyer knows is criminal or fraudulent, except as stated in paragraph (e), but a lawyer may discuss the legal consequences of any proposed course of conduct with a client and may counsel or assist a client to make a good faith effort to determine the validity, scope, meaning or application of the law;

(e) A lawyer may counsel or assist a client regarding conduct expressly permitted by the law of the state where it takes place or has its predominant effect, provided that the lawyer counsels the client about the legal consequences, under other applicable law, of the client’s proposed course of conduct.

The proposed rule will be available for comment up to and including June 3, 2016.  It will then be reverted back to the Rules Committee for final recommendation to the Supreme Court.  The Rules Committee’s next meeting is set for July.

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©2016 Legally Rooted, The Source for Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Organizations by The Slocum Firm, PC . All rights reserved. The information you find on this website is not, nor is it intended to be, legal advice. You should consult an attorney for consultation regarding your interest in an organization in the medical marijuana industry. We invite you to contact us and welcome your calls and form submissions. Contacting us does not create an attorney-client relationship. Please do not send any confidential information to us until we have determined that an attorney-client relationship has been established.