“ The bottom line is that Kevin Jacoby saved my business. When faced with a regulatory change that basically was forcing me out of business, I organized a group of affected business owners to seek solutions. Many people told us that using the courts would not be a good avenue for our endeavor. After our attempts to work things out with the governing agencies went nowhere, we interviewed several lawyers who all had different takes on our plight, but all were unsure of a good strategy. Kevin however, immediately saw a potential angle and impressed us with his professionalism and experience with administrative law. Himself and his small, efficient team built an argument that amazingly quickly got us an emergency stay and then a full win. We were literally days from having to permanently shutter our doors and the case opened them immediately. Kevin was great to work with, his patience for the questions from our entire team was incredible; his work ethic, which often involved long hours of work done to make filings that our group requested, constantly impressed me. For all these reasons and more, I highly recommend Kevin Jacoby as a general counsel and specifically for administrative law, where his knowledge and experience really shine.”
We represent Oregon businesses working to protect products, crops and their licenses involved in regulatory investigations by state agencies and provide trusted legal aid that set operations back on track.
Testing and product compliance error margins are razor thin in cannabis and other highly regulated industries, and at times unfairly or overzealously prosecuted. With many case wins under his belt, Kevin is no stranger to facing state administrative agencies in court or the steps that lead up to that.
CASE STUDY
Portland-Area Cannabis Dispensary. Between 2020 and to the present, Kevin has represented a Portland-area cannabis dispensary that came under intense scrutiny by OLCC for several suspected violations relating to alleged over-limit sales of products to consumers and medical patients. Over the course of several years, OLCC investigators launched multiple investigations which, if not handled correctly, could have resulted in cancellation of their license. However, through the use of resources such as camera footage, sales records, and witness statements, Kevin was able to demonstrate to OLCC’s satisfaction that their concerns were unwarranted. It turned out that the allegedly over-limit sales were a result of upload errors between the dispensary’s point of sale system (approved by OLCC) and METRC, OLCC’s seed-to-sale cannabis tracking system. Kevin was able to demonstrate that the upload errors were a result of METRC system limitations and educated OLCC’s inspectors that not everything they received from METRC was as they believed it to appear.
Southern Oregon Cannabis Wholesaler. In 2023, Kevin represented an OLCC licensed cannabis wholesaler involved in an investigation by OLCC. The client discovered that, without their knowledge, an employee had taken several pounds of product out of the facility without first creating a transfer manifest. It turned out that this employee, who was new but trying to be helpful, took the product to show at several dispensaries in the area for the purpose of drumming up sales. When the client discovered this, they were able to retrieve the product and educate the employee as to the proper way to transfer cannabis from their licensed premises for the purposes of sales. Kevin was able to persuade OLCC that the issue was an isolated incident and sought leniency from OLCC. Several months later, the case was able to conclude with a favorable settlement for the client.