AMERICA'S 1st CANNABIS LAW FIRM.
Since 1999
THOMAS LAVIGNE
Thomas MJ Lavigne JD is the managing partner at the law firm of Cannabis Counsel® with 5 attorneys, founded in 1999 by founding partner Matthew R. Abel, as a niche cannabis only law firm. The law office serves as an epicenter of the Michigan cannabis movement, out from which many ballot initiatives and lobbying efforts were orchestrated, wrangled over and achieved.
Lavigne provides legal regulatory compliance advice to businesses pursuing commercial licenses pursuant to the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act and the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act and general business law and business improvement advice.
He is the current Chairman of the Cannabis Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan, and a longtime member of the Section Leadership Council. Lawyer-Lavigne was Secretary of MILegalize, Ballot Question Committee grassroots coalition member of the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol which got the Adult-Use law on the ballot and passed in Michigan; he is a Lifetime Member of the National Lawyer’s Committee of NORML, a Board Member of NORML of Michigan and a member of the International Cannabis Bar Association. He is a former member of the Representative Assembly for the 3rd Circuit within the State Bar of Michigan.
Lavigne practiced law in Hawaii, 5-years; North Carolina, 4-years; and in Midland, Michigan, 3-years as an associate with the law firm of Rieker, VanDam, Barker and Black in the late nineties. Lavigne joined as in-house General Counsel with IDEACore in 2000 a business improvement methodologies software and consulting company in Birmingham, Michigan, until joining Cannabis Counsel® in 2010, after passage of the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act.