Tucker Ellis LLP has announced that Ashley Brandt has joined the firm’s business department as a member of its corporate/M&A/securities practice group in Chicago.

Brandt serves clients as outside counsel across a variety of industries, with a particular focus on alcoholic beverage-related and cannabis businesses. He counsels alcoholic beverage clients across the tiers including breweries, distilleries, wholesalers and retailers, and restaurants. He also represents dispensaries and growers in the evolving cannabis and hemp field.

Brandt assists clients in every aspect of their businesses, including entity formation, state and federal licensure and permitting, negotiating agreements with cultivators, wholesalers and distributors, branding, trademarks and trade secrets, legal compliance, alt-prop and contract brewing agreements, financing, and equipment leasing and purchasing. He also counsels food and beverage importers on import-export issues and international sourcing, licensing, and food import compliance agreements. With a passion for the cannabis and alcoholic beverages industries, Brandt regularly speaks and writes on the topic and publishes the Libation Law Blog, dedicated to legal issues in that sector. He received his law degree from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.