Joshua S. Bauchner is a seasoned trial lawyer and trusted legal strategist who advises businesses, investors, and property owners in complex commercial disputes, with a particular focus on cannabis, hemp, and psychedelics law, as well as high-stakes litigation, bankruptcy, and regulatory matters.Josh serves as the chair of the Cannabis, Hemp and Psychedelics Practice Group and is a partner in the Litigation, Bankruptcy, Hospitality, Landlord/Tenant, Construction, and Employment practice groups. He successfully handles numerous appeals in state and federal courts. His areas of specialization include: enforcement of commercial contracts such as lease agreements, guaranties, purchase and sale contracts, and commission agreements; litigation of partnership disputes; class action prosecution and defense; claims originating from insurance coverage denials; employment litigation including FLSA, ADA, ADEA, Title VII, and analogous state law claims; and defense against commercial landlord/tenant and foreclosure actions.
In the ever-evolving area of psychoactive substances, Josh was instrumental in co-hosting the inaugural Cannabis Symposium in New Jersey, attracting nearly a thousand attendees, with subsequent symposia continuing to garner attention. Josh is Chair of the Cannabis Chamber of Commerce’s Northeast Region, covering New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and D.C. As a notable member of the New Jersey State Bar Association Cannabis & Psychedelics Law Committee, New York State Bar Association Cannabis Law Committee, the NORML Legal Committee, and the Amicus Committee, he received the New Jersey Law Journal’s Innovator of the Year Award in 2022, and the Firm was named Cannabis Practice of the Year by both Law360 and the New Jersey Law Journal in 2025.
After graduating from law school, Josh had the honor of clerking for the Honorable Ursula Ungaro at the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. He also served as the Deputy Director of the Legal Division at the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs.
A passion for education and community development, as a licensed real estate instructor in New York, he educates aspiring real estate professionals, and he has served as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School. Josh also is deeply involved in his community. He was appointed by the Manhattan Borough President to Manhattan Community Board 10, where he served as the Board’s treasurer and co-chaired the Committee on Land Use. Additionally, he played an active role on the Board of Trustees for Wheaton College, the New York Theater Ballet, Frederick Douglass Boulevard Alliance, and the Harlem Wellness Center.
He is admitted to practice in both New York and New Jersey as well as the United States District Court of Michigan, the United States District Courts for the Southern, Eastern and Western Districts of New York, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey as well as the United States Court of Appeals for the Second and Third Circuits.
In addition to his professional endeavors, Josh’s thoughts and perspectives have been featured in numerous publications, shedding light on diverse areas such as cannabis and psychedelics laws, creditors’ rights in bankruptcy, ADA compliance, broker liability, and AI in the workplace, among other areas.
About the Original Authors
Seth Tipton
Seth R. Tipton is a partner of the firm and Chair of its corporate, commercial real estate, and cannabis practice groups. During his career, Seth has represented corporate clients in connection with business formation, internal governance, and mergers and acquisitions. In the latter capacity, Seth has guided privately-held companies through digital auctions, preliminary negotiations, financing, and closing of multi-million-dollar transactions on both the buy and sell side.
In addition, Seth is a leader in the field of cannabis law. He has represented applicants for medical cannabis permits in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, guiding them on private capital raises, application requirements, and real estate acquisition and approval. Seth counsels clients on all aspects of formation and compliance for cannabis companies, from start-ups to multi-state operators. For example, Seth was counsel for Keystone Releaf LLC in a successful appeal of denial of a medical marijuana application, and he was counsel for successful applicants for medical cannabis dispensaries and cultivators in the 2019 New Jersey Department of Health request for applications. He is the immediate past co-chair the New Jersey State Bar Association Cannabis Law Special Committee, and an instructor for NJ Canna Certified where he teaches cannabis law basics to students at many of New Jersey’s community colleges. In2022, Seth was ranked 5th on Insider New Jersey’s The Insider 100: Cannabis Power List which is a tribute to politically influential voices in New Jersey’s cannabis movement.
Seth also has extensive experience with representing both lenders and developers in all phases of commercial real estate development, including due diligence, zoning and planning applications, and negotiating and finalizing acquisition and construction loans. He has guided clients through sale leaseback transactions, multi-family and medical office building construction, financing and sales, and a variety of other projects. As part of this work, Seth has represented clients with a variety of development incentive programs, including the first City Revitalization Improvement Zone (“CRIZ”) project in Pennsylvania, the Keystone Improvement Zone (“KIZ”) tax credits and the New Jersey Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit program.
Seth has served as counsel for hospitals and has overseen matters adverse to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; the management and retention of hospital employees; licensing; negotiation of medical supply and services contracts; and compliance with the Stark and Anti-Kickback Laws. He has also guided physicians in New Jersey and Pennsylvania in connection with the sale of medical practices, and the regulatory and licensing processes regarding the establishment of new practices.
Prior to joining the firm, Seth served as a law clerk for the Honorable Ariel A. Rodriguez, Presiding Judge of the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey.
Sarah Powell
Sarah Powell is a partner in Florio Perrucci Steinhardt Cappelli Tipton & Taylor LLC’s Corporate & Business, Commercial Real Estate, and Cannabis Practice Groups.
Sarah’s corporate practice involves everything from the formation to the dissolution of a company and serves clients ranging from new entities and startups to established businesses and repeat entrepreneurs. She has experience with corporate governance and organization, joint ventures, and a variety of other corporate and transactional matters.
As part of her transactional practice, Sarah has extensive experience with negotiating and drafting contracts, including purchase and sale agreements, commercial leases, and asset purchase agreements. She has significant experience in all aspects of real estate transactions, including completing comprehensive due diligence investigations and complicated title and survey reviews. Sarah has drafted and negotiated complex industrial and commercial leases on behalf of tenants and landlords.
Sarah is also a member of the firm’s cannabis law practice. She has experience advising clients regarding the licensing process and other regulatory issues at both the state and local levels. Sarah’s knowledge of and experience with the cannabis space and its quickly evolving statutes and regulations is expansive. Her regulatory knowledge, combined with her corporate and real estate background, make her particularly skilled at serving the many needs of both emerging businesses and large companies in the cannabis industry.
Sarah earned her Juris Doctor with honors from Emory University School of Law and her B.A. from Haverford College.
New Jersey State Bar Association Cannabis Law Committee Members
NJSBA
The following New Jersey State Bar Association Cannabis Law Committee Members were kind enough to review the primary source statutory content contained in this publication as well as writing the Foreword:
Joshua S. Bauchner
Joshua S. Bauchner is co-chair of the Litigation Department, head of the Controlled Substances and Regulatory Law Department, and a member of the Community Association and Bankruptcy departments. He devotes his practice to complex commercial, class action, bankruptcy-related and securities litigation, and controlled substances law.
As head of the Controlled Substances and Regulatory Law Practice Group, Josh co-hosted on behalf of the Firm the first-ever Cannabis Symposium in New Jersey which drew nearly a thousand people (two other Symposia followed). He is co-chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association Cannabis Law Committee, a member of the NORML Legal Committee and Amicus Committee, has spoken at the Cannabis World Congress and Business Expo at the Jacob Javits Center, and has presented CLE’s on cannabis at the NY and NJ State Bar Associations, among other fora across the country. He also was honored with the New Jersey Law Journal’s Innovator of the Year Award for his work in the cannabis space and also publishes regularly on the topic.
Josh led the Firm in filing a pro-bono amicus curiae brief in the United States Supreme Court in the matter of Washington v. Barr, on behalf of several non-profit organizations representing former national and international professional athletes in support of a constitutional challenge to the federal government’s continued refusal to remove marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, even though millions of Americans use marijuana on a regular basis to manage debilitating health conditions in accordance with State, territorial, and local laws. Unfortunately, with the passing of Justice Ginsberg, petitioners were unable to secure the four votes necessary to secure review.
Josh and his colleague also served as the principal authors of a pro-bono amicus curiae brief filed on behalf of NORML in support of Petitioners in Dr. Sunil Aggarwal, MD, PhD; Advanced Integrative Medical Science Institute, PLLC v. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; Anne Milgram in Her Official Capacity as Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; and Merrick Garland in His Official Capacity as Attorney General, No. 22-178, in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The brief cautions the federal government against allowing history to repeat itself, providing an historical account of NORML’s efforts to decriminalize cannabis for medicinal purposes for the past half-century and the never-ending efforts of the federal government to delay, resist, and obstruct the progress of science and medicine. While the federal government is unlikely to learn any lessons from the past, NORML hopes that this Court will acknowledge and heed the legal and procedural lessons learned from those past administrative petition litigations so that innocent dying patients—who are the true victims of the government’s misbehavior—are not denied readily available medicine.
Josh also represents condominium and cooperative boards of management, is a licensed real estate instructor in the state of New York and teaches a course for real estate sales professionals. He has taught as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School.
Following law school, Josh served as law clerk to the Honorable Ursula Ungaro in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Immediately prior to joining Ansell Grimm & Aaron, he was deputy director of the Legal Division at the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs and previously worked at a national litigation firm.
Lisa Gora
Lisa regularly analyzes federal and state statutes and regulations in connection with the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark Law, New Jersey’s Codey Law and other state-specific self-referral laws, the federal False Claims Act, the New Jersey False Claims Act, Board of Medical Examiners regulations, HIPAA, HITECH, licensing and reimbursement issues, and other fraud and abuse laws. Her clients include health care professionals as well as group practices and other health care entities, such as hospitals, academic medical centers, ambulatory surgery centers, management service organizations, ambulatory care facilities, substance use treatment facilities, mental health facilities (outpatient and inpatient), and nursing homes, among others.
Lisa’s health care, corporate, and cannabis clients also rely on Lisa to guide them through transactional matters concerning mergers and acquisitions as well as the formation and structure of such entities, including joint ventures, affiliation agreements, and management services organizations. In addition, she reviews and prepares physician employment agreements and corporate-related ownership documents for medical practices and her cannabis clients.
On the forefront of the burgeoning cannabis industry and with many years of industry experience, Lisa helps clients in the cannabis space navigate the industry’s complicated and ever-changing regulatory landscape. Her cannabis law practice includes the representation of alternative treatment centers within the medicinal cannabis industry as well as start-ups and multistate operators in the personal adult-use cannabis industry, such as cultivators, manufacturers, retailers, delivery services, distributors, and testing laboratories. Lisa advises clients in connection with licensing, ownership, and regulatory compliance pursuant to state laws, rules, and regulations. Lisa also advises clients on regulatory considerations associated with anticipated mergers and acquisitions. Additionally, she provides advice to physicians, hospitals, and others doing business in the legal cannabis market in New Jersey concerning issues related to recommending, authorizing, administering, and possessing medical cannabis.
Further, Lisa frequently lectures on ownership in medical practices and cannabis entities(buying in and separating from) and the related considerations and challenges. She has lectured to residents and fellows of differing residency programs at medical universities within New Jersey and New York regarding the key components of physician-employment agreements and how to equitably negotiate such terms. Some of the medical centers she has presented at are Columbia University Medical Center (NY), Mount Sinai Hospital (NY), Bronx VA Medical Center (NY), and Monmouth Medical Center (NJ).
Lisa serves as Chair of the Medical Staff, Credentialing, and Peer Review Practice Group of the American Health Law Association. She is also Chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association Health Law Section and Co-Chair of the Cannabis Law Committee.
Lisa serves as co-author of the New Jersey Law Journal monthly column on the impacts of legal cannabis on New Jersey businesses. She was Editor-in-Chief of the first edition of HealthCare and the Business of Cannabis: Legal Questions and Answers, a first-of-its-kind project published by the American Health Law Association, which offers insight on the interplay between medicinal cannabis and the health care industry, as well as related information on legal and practical considerations in connection with business opportunities surrounding medicinal cannabis and its by-products. She also co-authored “Medical Marijuana: State and Federal Law Thickets and Practical Implications” in the Health Law Handbook, published by Thomson Reuters in May 2020. Before joining Epstein Becker Green, Lisa was Co-Chair of the Cannabis Law team and a shareholder in the Corporate and Health Law teams at a regional law firm.
Toggle Nav
International Order Inquiry