Ariel Clark is a progressive pioneer and business lawyer leading the new generation of the cannabis industry. Simultaneously shrewd, inspiring, and engaging, Ariel advises cannabis business owners and entrepreneurs nationwide, and enjoys an excellent reputation as a fierce advocate who applies the conservative approach necessary to protect and advance her clients’ interests.

Since 2008, Ariel has specialized in the cannabis industry and successfully guided her clients through the complex and ever-changing rules, laws, and regulations governing the medical and adult-use marijuana industry. Her clients value her extensive industry experience, contagious spirit, and no nonsense approach, buoyed by the confidence that they are getting the best advice available.

Through her many years navigating California’s volatile and unregulated market, she has significantly shaped the legal contours of its evolving cannabis market. Her clients include licensed dispensaries, growers, and manufacturers in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, and Michigan.

Prior to founding Clark Neubert LLP, Ariel captained her own solo firm for six years, which she started after practicing Indian law with California Indian Legal Services in their Oakland, Santa Rosa, and Eureka Offices. Being half Ottawa from the Grand Traverse Band, combined with her Indian law experience, proves invaluable to the Indian tribes and Indian-owned cannabis businesses the firm now represents.

Through her experiences as a cannabis attorney in Los Angeles, she realized the need to create a community out of disparate elements who traditionally had been isolated, distrustful, and competitive. Knowing that there was an unsuspected depth waiting to be tapped, she reached out to her clients, friends, and peers to found ElevateLA, a nonprofit that brought the Los Angeles cannabis industry together as a community.

To raise awareness and influence public policy, she founded the Los Angeles Cannabis Task Force in 2016. Although the beginnings of the process were mired in hard-line positions and fractionalism, she was impressed with how everyone put aside their specific agendas, listened to each other, and worked together for a common solution. Assembling a functioning team of concerned, informed, and resourceful community members, she and the Task Force are working towards a comprehensive and equitable policy that aligns Los Angeles with state law.

Ariel earned her Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree, with honors, from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is a founding partner of Clark Neubert LLP, founder and chair of the LA Cannabis Task Force, founder of ElevateLA, board member of California NORML, on the policy board of the California Growers Association, member of the National Cannabis Industry Association and California Cannabis Industry Association, an active member of the California State Bar, the Beverly Hills Bar Association, the Drug Policy Alliance, and the National Lawyers Guild.