A changing Maine means a changing legal landscape
The past three years have seen a lot of change in Maine, and it’s not all pandemic related.
Law firms have had to adjust along the way as well. Recreational cannabis sales, an effort to improve diversity in the legal community, responding to the growing need for volunteer lawyers — these are just a few of the issues that have taken the spotlight recently.
Maine’s recreational cannabis sector is still in the early stages, with retailers in only the second full year of operations. (Maine voters approved the general concept in 2016, the Maine Office of Cannabis Policy was created in 2019 and adult-use cannabis stores opened in October 2020.) New places, like Theory Wellness in Kittery, continue to open.
Yet with the friction between state and federal laws, Maine’s law firms are busy expanding their practice areas. Lawyers are working with licensed cannabis businesses as well as financial institutions and investors that face related but different regulations, as Senior Writer Renee Cordes reports. For more, see “Bench press” on Page 18.
Diversity has been a pressing topic in the past three years. A recent report by the Maine State Bar Association looks not only at diversity within the legal profession but also how lawyers treat “clients who are not white or do not speak English as their first language,” with 28% of Maine respondents to an association survey saying they had experienced or witnessed racially or ethnically motivated discrimination, disparate treatment or problematic comments within the legal realm. See “Maine state bar releases its first DEI report,” on Page 20.
Economic uncertainty in recent years has also elevated the need for volunteer lawyers who can work with people that can’t afford an attorney. Senior Writer Laurie Schreiber talks to the executive director of the Maine Volunteer Lawyers Project, Elizabeth Stout. In the area of domestic violence, the nonprofit has been especially helpful in getting volunteer lawyers placed in situations that have escalated but where the victim is unable to otherwise get legal help. See “Pro bono,” which starts on Page 12.
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