Blogs & Insights
Long-form legal analysis and practical guidance for businesses operating in emerging and regulated industries.
Explore Cogent Law blogs and thought leadership across cannabis, fintech, blockchain, corporate law, intellectual property, litigation, tax, immigration, and money transmission.
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BlogYour Brand Is a Business Asset. Here's How to Treat It Like One.
Founders invest heavily in building a brand but rarely protect it like the asset it is. A trademark and business attorney on turning brand equity into a defensible, valuable asset.
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BlogBeyond the LLC: Signs Your Business Has Outgrown Its Structure
The single-member LLC is a great place to start — and a structure many businesses grow out of. A business attorney on the signs it's time to restructure, and what comes next.
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BlogWho Owns AI-Generated Content? What Business Owners Need to Understand
As businesses build with generative AI, ownership of the output is a live legal question. A business and IP attorney explains what you can and can't protect — and how to reduce your risk.
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BlogWhat Cannabis Operators Actually Need Before a Lender Will Listen
Keisha J. Williams of LogicalFlo with Suehiko Ono and Chris Van Dyck of Cogent Law on the books, inventory discipline, compliance records, and workforce structure that make a cannabis operator bankable.
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Blog5 Common Trademark Mistakes I See Entrepreneurs Make (and What to Do Instead)
April R. Martindale, Partner at Cogent Law, on the trademark mistakes entrepreneurs make most often: unprotectable names, skipped clearance searches, unregistered marks, wrong filing classes, and neglected maintenance.
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BlogWhat Startups Actually Need to Know Before They Protect Their IP
Evan Smith, Partner at Cogent Law, on treating intellectual property as a business tool: what to patent, when to file, how to choose a protectable trademark, and how to handle trade secrets with investors.
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BlogCross-Border Expansion in Regulated Industries: Risks and Strategies
Joshua Radbod of Cogent Law and Rubio Teixeira of Octus Consulting on licensing timelines, costs, local partners, and compliance lead time when expanding into the United States or Brazil.
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BlogGuaranteeing the First Loan: A State Loan-Loss Reserve, a Farmer-Owned Marketplace, and the Test Case New York Needs
Suehiko Ono and Chris Van Dyck propose a New York state-funded loan-loss reserve for cannabis lending, and a farmer-owned marketplace test case that would make the first loan bankable.
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BlogThe Institutionalization of Cannabis Lending: Credit Risk, Regulators, and the Opportunity
Chris Van Dyck of Cogent Law and Ted Robinson of CTrust on why cannabis lending is institutionalizing: where regulatory risk actually sits, the three risks specific to cannabis loans, examiner expectations, and what rescheduling changes.
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BlogCannabis Rescheduling: Vault for Banking and Financial Services?
How the rescheduling of medical cannabis to Schedule III reshapes risk, compliance, and lending strategy for financial institutions serving the cannabis industry.
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BlogStablecoin Payments and the EFTA
Mark T. Dabertin analyzes the CFPB's withdrawn proposed rule and explains why applying Regulation E to on-chain stablecoin payments would be both impracticable and legally misplaced.
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BlogInside the Cannabis Operator Playbook: What Actually Happens After You Launch
Operators and advisors break down what actually happens after launch, from governance and dispute clauses in operating agreements to GMP readiness, staffing, and documented compliance processes.
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