Anne van Leynseele launched into the burgeoning cannabis industry to serve her clients in a way other attorneys did not, by creating an ethical firm to uphold full compliance and educate clients on the demands of a highly regulated industry. For this purpose, her law firm, NWMJ Law, later named 7 Point Law, provided a business centered experience that focused on the commercialization and solving the countless number of problems cannabis companies faced in the early days of the legalized industry.
With a remarkable core team of five lawyers, two paralegals, and an additional team of specialist outside lawyers, 7 Point Law provided their clients with a comprehensive set of information and support. Anne believes that regular communication is necessary to keep the clients updated about the rapidly evolving regulations in the industry.
As an innovator, Anne never stopped exploring the world, especially questioning the status quo, a trait that served her well throughout her life and career. She was inspired by the cannabis industry entrepreneurs’ passion and the undefined new industry, which encouraged her to explore the boundaries of the regulations, while working with government regulatory agencies to define compliance. Anne thinks that the two important qualities in running a law firm are integrity and a bespoke approach, both of which she provides in her services.
While being consistent in her principles, Anne built her first company at the age of 26. Along the way, she has been at the top of five industries and holds four degrees. The secret to her success lies in her exceptional brain and determination to go deep into anything she engages in. Instead of just looking at the immediate need, Anne considers all the angels and possible outcomes prior to making a decision or advising a client. This skill is vital in the cutting edge high-risk industries to which she has been drawn her entire life.
While being a regulatory and corporate cannabis lawyer and trusted business advisor, Anne is also an internationally known cannabis and hemp expert. Through law school, Anne worked as a litigation clerk at Preston Gates & Ellis,later to become K&L Gates, LLP. During law school and in her early law career, she helped reshape the healthcare industry through her time as a federal attorney advisor under the Obama White House, and then returned to Washington State where founded her own boutique cannabis law firm.
In 2019, Anne spent some time with a well established Los Angeles law firm, where she expanded her working knowledge into import and export law, multilayer organization structures, IPOs, as well as domestic and international licensing agreements. Presently, she is serving as a fractional general counsel and business advisor at her new company, Gemba Growth, where for more than a year her practice centers on the regulatory compliance, expansion, and exit strategies for domestic and trans-national cannabis and hemp companies and providing legal counsel to national and international non-cannabis businesses seeking entry to the cannabis space.
Through her first-hand experiences, she came to realize that little is known or spoken of about the criminal faction still present in the legalized cannabis industry. Concerned with the national expansion of the industry and failure to remove this problem, Anne is currently writing a much anticipated memoir on the early days of legal cannabis, which will be published before the end of 2021.
