Yes, it is legal to start your very own medical cannabis business in New Zealand. However, it’s common to source medical cannabis from overseas and do business with overseas parties. So, starting this kind of business means you need to understand the risks and obligations involved.

The Office of Drug Control (ODC) provides licences and permits for medical cannabis in New Zealand, so it’s important to understand how they regulate business practices around the sale of medical cannabis.

So, while it is legal to start a medical cannabis business, there are still regulations you need to comply with.

Our package starts from $1200 + GST and includes a phone consultation with a Sprintlaw legal team about the regulation of medical cannabis in New Zealand and how it affects your business.

Alternatively, we offer a Medical Cannabis Legal Advice package which includes a phone consultation (up to 60 minutes) with the Sprintlaw legal team and an email summary of advice regarding ODC regulations. Chat to our team today to learn more.

Sprintlaw operates in Australia, New Zealand the UK. In Australia, Sprintlaw is a regulated law firm and is an incorporated legal practice with number 32845 regulated by the Law Society of New South Wales. In New Zealand and the UK, Sprintlaw instead operates as a legal consultancy and is not a traditionally regulated law firm.

We have chosen to set up as a legal consultancy (rather than a regulated law firm) in New Zealand as it has made our expansion into the New Zealand market faster and easier, and it’s meant that we have a lower compliance burden and are able to significantly reduce our overhead costs when performing legal work. We are then able to pass on these cost savings to our clients, allowing us to provide high quality legal services to clients at a fraction of the cost of traditional firms.

So what’s the difference between Sprintlaw NZ’s consultancy model and a traditional NZ law firm?

In many respects, we are similar. Like a law firm, we offer legal services to our small business clients covering the majority of their regular legal needs, including drafting and reviewing contracts and providing legal and regulatory advice. However, there are a few key differences and limitations which are important to be aware of, set out below. In our view, the benefits of engaging a legal consultancy outweigh these limitations which is why we’ve elected to operate this way in NZ. If you have any questions about any of these our team would be more than happy to discuss.

Our Lawyers: The legal services we provide in New Zealand are not provided by New Zealand qualified lawyers. Our lawyers are Australian-qualified lawyers or UK-qualified lawyers, who are familiar with New Zealand’s laws and requirements, and thus are able to provide high quality legal services to New Zealand businesses. Given the strong similarities between Australian, English and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Reserved Areas: We are not permitted to provide services in reserved areas of law under section 6 and section 35 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 (see here). These include appearing in court or conducting litigation proceedings, managing conveyancing matters, or giving advice under the Property (Relationships) Act 1976. As such, Sprintlaw does not operate in these areas. We find these areas are rarely applicable to our small business clients seeking commercial legal advisory services.

Privilege: When working with traditional law firms, advice provided is considered “privileged”. This means that correspondence between a client and solicitor can, if made confidentially and for the purposes of legal advice, be withheld from a court or third party in connection with litigation proceedings. As Sprintlaw operates as a legal consultancy, it means that certain advice we provide may not be “privileged” but rather will be treated in the same manner as advice from your accountants or anyone else who is not a regulated advisor such as a solicitor or barrister. This does not affect our confidentiality obligations to you, and our engagement letter confirms that any advice or discussions we have will be kept confidential. Given that Sprintlaw do not operate in court-related or litigious matters, we find that privilege is rarely an issue relevant to our kind of legal work.

Insurance: Sprintlaw is not required to have professional indemnity insurance that meets the New Zealand Law Society’s minimum requirements. Regardless, Sprintlaw has chosen to maintain professional indemnity cover so our clients still benefit from insurance protection.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate. They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our ‘legal consultancy’ model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain ‘reserved’ areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our ‘legal consultancy’ model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading Australian firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the ‘get started’ button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you’ve submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed-fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you’re happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online – easy!

Once you’ve formally accepted, we’ll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.