Photo of Jeffrey O'Brien

Jeffrey O'Brien

A corporate and transactional attorney who thinks holistically about clients’ businesses, Jeffrey often serves clients for decades.

Jeffrey began his legal career at a firm that focused on both real estate and traditional corporate transactions, and he quickly discovered that he thrived on closing deals. Almost a quarter century later, he still finds it exciting and rewarding to get a client’s deal across the finish line, and he loves seeing the business growth that results—especially when it’s tangible real property that can be visited in real life.

Primarily a business attorney with a focus on corporate transactions, Jeffrey regularly oversees mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and private securities offerings. He also frequently handles ancillary real estate deals, including commercial leasing, land acquisition, loan documentation, purchase and sale of residential and commercial property, and resolution of title matters. While Jeffrey supports clients in a variety of industries, he has built a strong niche practice in the hospitality realm, often representing restaurants, bars, and breweries. After cannabis was partially legalized in Minnesota in 2023, he began representing businesses in the burgeoning industrial hemp and cannabis industries as well and has become a leading attorney in the Minnesota cannabis world.

Jeffrey works with clients who have branches, offices, and restaurants across the country, and he joined Husch Blackwell in 2024 to ensure nationwide coverage for the organizations he represents. He handles deals with values in the low millions up to hundreds of millions—but he treats every deal like a major deal, because he knows no transaction is small or insignificant to the client. Jeffrey is known for going beyond an individual transaction and thinking holistically about the client’s business and its future: he structures deals and gives advice with an eye to the organization’s long-term goals, often all the way to an eventual exit strategy. His ability to serve as a business partner draws clients back again and again, and Jeffrey has served many of the same clients for nearly 20 years.

In our previous legal update last month, we outlined language included in one of the appropriations bills which was passed in connection with ending the historic government shutdown. The package contained language that, among other things, recriminalized synthetic or artificially derived cannabinoids and products containing more than .4 mg of total THC combined with any other cannabinoids determined by the FDA to have a similar effect as THC per “container.” These provisions would not take effect for 365 days from the signing of the reopening package, which provides time for reconsideration by lawmakers.

In March 2025, the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) officially closed its application window for cannabis licenses in Minnesota. While some license types were decided by lottery, others were uncapped, including testing facilities. Testing facilities are integral to the Minnesota cannabis supply chain as they ensure that all products bought and sold in Minnesota are safe for consumers. Given their essential function within the Minnesota cannabis industry, OCM has prioritized the prompt operational readiness of testing facilities. With no need to wait for a lottery, potential license holders pursuing those types of licenses are able to begin searching for and securing property and ensuring its compliance with local laws.

On the heels of the 2018 Farm Bill, some states have opted to regulate hemp-derived cannabinoid consumer products. One of the early movers in this area is the State of Minnesota. The regulations in Minnesota for hemp-derived cannabinoid products (as well as licensing for them) are changing, with licensing opening up this fall. Interestingly, Minnesota has adopted a sort of hybridized cannabis and hemp program, in which cannabis licensees can also access and sell “lower-potency hemp edibles” (“LPHE”) made outside of the heavily regulated cannabis license supply chain.

Like many others, we were caught up in filing a slew of Minnesota adult use cannabis applications for our clients by March 14 (which, if you were paying attention, that deadline was extended to March 15 by midnight because of a crash with the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) website). Every time a licensing window opens in a state with a new adult use cannabis program, there are lessons to be learned for clients, attorneys, and regulators, alike.

The Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management (“OCM”) has begun issuing final denials to the overwhelming majority of previously qualified social equity applicants (“SEA”s) ahead of its first statewide cannabis lottery on December 2 for 280 available “preapproval” cannabis licenses.

America’s Dairyland does not currently have any form of either medical or adult-use cannabis. The state has tried and failed at least a couple of times on convening medical cannabis legislation (see here on the latest attempt earlier this year). At the same time, Wisconsin is surrounded by three states that have both medical and adult-use cannabis programs (Minnesota, Illinois, and Michigan), with Canada to the north, which legalized cannabis in 2018.