Gonzalez talked with ROI-NJ about her role at Bressler, as well as her roles at Minorities for Medical Marijuana (where she serves as outside general counsel) and the Minority Cannabis Business Association (where she is on the advisory panel).
The interview was edited for clarity.
ROI-NJ: Let’s talk about your commitment to women and minorities in this space, as it’s one area where you have been a champion.
Jessica Gonzalez: I had my own firm (Moyeno Gonzalez and Associates P.C.) for about a year. It was focused directly on the cannabis, hemp and CBD space. We were Latina-owned. And, really, our whole purpose in forming was to lower the barriers of entry for minority- and women-owned companies. Obviously, legal services are a huge barrier to specific demographics, for the simple fact it’s expensive. And everything in cannabis is much more expensive.
We started this venture to be able to provide legal services to minority- and women-owned companies, and I am very proud to say that, by the end of the year, we had 29 clients and 90% of them were either women- or minority-owned companies.
ROI: How did it all work?
JG: We provided discounted services. So, if you were a group that was committed to promoting social equity, whether that be events or hiring folks from underserved communities, we provided a discount for your first year of engagement. We also provided flat-fee rates. A lot of folks are really comfortable with that, because they knew upfront what they were getting, whether we were working on LLC formation, a trademark or certain corporate documents. We also provided payment plans if you were not able to afford everything upfront. We always were very flexible with our clients. We wanted them to have some skin in the game, but they need a lawyer to be able to get to that point.
ROI: Now that you’ve joined Bressler, this all changes — both the amount of service you can provide and the cost, correct? Why did you make the move?
JG: I’ve been talking with talking to Nik, the co-chair, for quite some time, really. I really liked what Bressler was doing in this space. I had a couple of other law firms also reach out to me, but I wanted to choose a law firm that both would allow me to continue with my entrepreneurial spirit and allow me to continue to grow in the cannabis space. A lot of law firms do have this cannabis practice group, but some of them either like to keep it hush-hush, or they’re only involved up until a certain point. Bressler was very reassuring of the fact that they really want me to go forward and that they would provide me with the resources and the platform that I really needed to do more of the work that I wanted to do. That’s why I decided to join the firm.
There are going to be some differences. But, thankfully, the firm has allowed me to keep the rates that I have with my current clients. Obviously, any new clients will come in at the firm’s rate. But, for my existing clients, it was important that I maintained consistency with them. That was the expectation that I provided them from the beginning that, for a whole entire year of engagement, they will have this rate for me. They will have these flat fees applicable to them.