Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, a multidisciplinary, integrated professional services firm, announced the arrival of Special Counsel Jason Klimek to the Firm’s cross-platform Cannabis and CBD practice. As a trusted advisor in this disruptive industry, Klimek leverages his corporate and tax background to guide clients across a variety of regulatory, licensing and structuring-related matters. At Manatt, he will deepen the Firm’s legal, consulting and policy work in the national cannabis and CBD space, which is led by Los Angeles Real Estate Partner Anita Famili and last year welcomed New York Health Care Partner Axel Bernabe, who helped launch the cannabis industry in New York.

With a deep background in cannabis and policy throughout New York and the Northeast and experience as a successful corporate and tax attorney, Klimek is uniquely positioned to counsel clients at the intersection of corporate, tax law and regulatory frameworks. For the better part of the last decade, Klimek has led a cannabis practice representing conditional adult-use retail dispensary licensees, cultivators, processors, cannabis labs and several multi-state operators. He has worked with lawmakers and regulators to develop cannabis law, advised clients on aspects of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act and structured relationships to comply with cannabis regulations in mergers and acquisitions and intellectual property.

Klimek focuses on the complex processes of structuring, licensing and maintaining compliant cannabis businesses at the federal, state and local levels and has extensive experience advising clients on the evolving federal and state tax compliance issues affecting cannabis-touching businesses, as well as entity selection, funding, intellectual property, employment matters and securities transactions. He has also performed tax analyses on C Corporations, S Corporations and LLCs, drafted tax opinions and operating agreement provisions, reviewed tax implications of intellectual property sales and acquisitions, and advised clients on tax ramifications of proposed business and financial transactions, including stock and asset sales and M&A transactions.

Klimek currently serves as Tax Committee Chair and Executive Committee Member of the New York State Bar Association’s Cannabis Law Section, developing cannabis taxation focused on continuing legal education programming and drafting cannabis tax analyses and recommendations on behalf of the New York State Bar Association. He has also served as Policy Committee Chair for the Cannabis Association of New York, where he developed Association policy positions on statutory and regulatory actions, worked with industry stakeholders on cannabis issues and analyzed cannabis statutory and regulatory guidance.

Klimek joins the Firm’s roster of legal and consulting professionals who have also joined over the last year across core industry sectors, including Cross-Industry Corporate and Finance (Bill Broome); Digital and Technology (Tim Andrews and Lisa W. Rosaya); Entertainment (Binta Niambi Brown); Financial Services (Warren Biro, Haley Fiallo, Mike Katz, Jessica Sklute, Troy Zander); Health Care (Heide Bajnrauh, Axel Bernabe, Tom Cassels, Pat Cerundolo, Christina (Chrissy) Farr, Dr. Shamiram (Shami) Feinglass, Robert (Rob) Fraiman, Seth Frazier, Eric Gold, Erin Estey Hertzog, Kendall Hussey, Paul Irving, Dr. Tracy Johnson, Anna Lansky, Ross Margulies, John O’Brien, Lisa Sbrana, Melindah Sharma, Jerry Tichner, Mark Wietecha, and Shaina Zurlin); and Cross-Industry Litigation (Schuyler G. Carroll, Dylan Carson, Randy S. Grossman, Kareem A. Salem and Justin Wolosz).

Klimek earned his B.S. from Saint John Fisher College, his J.D. from Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center and his L.L.M. from Boston University School of Law.