CULLINANS - Key Persons
Barry is an attorney of the High Court of South Africa, practicing in the area of corporate and commercial law.
After qualifying as an attorney with Webber Wentzel in Johannesburg, Barry practiced at the Legal Resources Centre in Johannesburg, a non-profit public interest law centre which provides legal services for the vulnerable and marginalized communities of South Africa who suffer discrimination. At the Legal Resources Centre he worked with landless communities and communities under threat of removal as a consequence of South Africa's apartheid legislation of the time. He also acted for individuals bringing civil actions against the apartheid government for damages arising from unlawful arrest, assault and detention. In 1989 he joined the practice of Mallinicks in Cape Town, then one of the few South African legal practices that challenged injustices prevailing in South Africa at the time, by representing clients in the public interest. In the Mallinicks public interest law department Barry continued to practice in the same areas and was also involved in representing numerous community organizations in the Western Cape in negotiations with local authorities around land and development issues.
As constitutional and democratic changes occurred in South Africa, he began practicing in the Mallinicks corporate and commercial department and was made a partner of the firm in 1994. When Mallinicks merged with Webber Wentzel in 2008, Barry became a partner at Webber Wentzel where he was a member of the private equity team. In 2009 he established Barry Adams, Attorneys, a niche corporate law practice, and became a member of the Corporate Law Alliance whose members include his former partners in the Mallinicks Corporate Law department.
Barry has considerable experience in advising on corporate and general commercial transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, purchase and sale of shares and businesses, shareholder relationships and a range of other corporate transactions. He has extensive experience in the financial services industry where he advises clients on regulatory and transactional matters. His area of expertise also includes all aspects of private equity and venture capital, including fund formation and transactional advice and local and cross border transactions.
Few lawyers can rival the depth and breadth of the environmental law and governance expertise which Cormac has acquired in working in more than 20 countries over two decades.
Cormac is a lawyer with strong creative, communication, writing, and leadership skills, and a reputation for innovation and "thinking outside the box". He represents a diverse range of clients that include international organisations, governments, businesses (e.g. in the renewable energy, waste, manufacturing and hospitality sectors), cities, non-governmental organisations and local communities.
Cormac started his legal career in maritime and international commercial law with Shepstone and Wylie and Maitland and Co before specialising in environmental law and governance in 1994 when he established EnAct International in London. Today few lawyers can rival the depth and breadth of the environmental law and governance expertise which Cormac has acquired in working in more than 25 countries over three decades. This includes: designing the "architecture" of public and private sector governance systems that promote sustainability, drafting contracts and legal instruments (ranging from international treaties and declarations to national, provincial and municipal legislation) litigating, advising businesses and social entrepreneurs on greening their enterprises, and developing legal compliance systems.
He is also an internationally respected author, speaker and advocate for ecological sustainability and the rights of Nature. In 2008 he was included in a book profiling 301 extraordinary environmentalists in history and in 2012 he was won the Nick Steele award for the South African environmentalist of the year, and in 2018 the Enviropaedia life-time achievement award.
Cormac loves wild places and creatures and spends a lot of time thinking about how to build socially just and ecologically sustainable communities within industrialised civilisations. His work in pioneering a legal philosophy that restores an ecological perspective to governance systems (Earth jurisprudence) is internationally recognised. Cormac is the founder and managing director of the Wild Law Institute, which works in alliance with indigenous and local peoples, organisations and individuals from around the world to pioneer laws and practices that enhance the health and vitality of Earth. He has addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations and many other international conferences, and led the drafting of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth.
Lesai has an excellent track-record managing complex strategic ligation. His work is driven by intellectual curiosity and dedication to finding solutions to environmental problems.
Pam has been in the legal industry for forty years and has gained extensive knowledge and experience in the various legal fields. She attends to the firm's administration duties to ensure the smooth running of the office.
Paul-Michael has practiced as a general and commercial litigator for 9 years. He now practices and consults for Cullinan and Associates, focusing on the legal aspects of cannabis, psilocybin and related natural medicines.
Paul-Michael ("PM") has been admitted as an Attorney of the High Court of South Africa, with right of appearance, since 2013, when he accepted the brief of the now-famous ‘Dagga Couple' to assist them in decriminalising cannabis use, possession and trade in the country. Apart from this landmark human rights work, he continued to practice as a general and commercial litigator for a large law firm in Johannesburg, often appearing in Court himself, until his departure to pursue other opportunities and lifestyles in October of 2021. In his former role, he contributed to many matters that resulted in reported judgments in favour of his clients.
With its genesis in a cannabis assignment, written to complete his law degree in 2009, his dedicated cannabis and entheogen practice and advocacy afforded him the honour of appearing in the Constitutional Court in 2018 and noting its famous "privacy judgment" (which marked the effective start of meaningful drug reform in the country). P-M has since advised numerous local and international clients on wherever in the cannabis value chain that they may wish to establish themselves, made written and oral submissions to Parliament on more humane drug laws, assisted government, otherwise engaged with regulators, lectured and interviewed on the topic, been invited to steering committees, handled other cannabis-related litigation, and even presented on drug policy at the United Nations in Vienna.
Now practicing and consulting to Cullinan and Associates remotely from Kwa-Zulu Natal, he is leading a High Court (ultimately Constitutional Court) challenge to decriminalise the multiple legitimate uses of psilocybin, and is trying his hand generally at progressing Earth jurisprudence, while learning the ropes of being an environmental lawyer, in addition to his general human rights work - which he considers as entirely complimentary, given that humanity and nature are (inseparably) one and the same.
Job Titles:
- Attorney
- Cullinan & Associates As a Consultant
Phillipa has practiced in the environmental law field for more than 8 years, and assists clients in both the public and private sectors on a range of environmental and sustainability issues.
Phillipa joined Cullinan & Associates as a consultant in February 2021. She holds both a BComm and LLB from Rhodes University, and an LLM in Marine and Environmental Law from the University of Cape Town (which was awarded with distinction). Phillipa completed her articles at Bowmans in 2011 before joining a specialist environmental law firm where she practiced for a number of years. She has also lectured environmental law at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the University of Cape Town and the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Phillipa's experience includes providing advice to individual and corporate clients on a range of environmental and sustainability law issues (including planning and development; mining; agriculture; waste management and pollution control; natural resource management; coastal management; and renewable energy); environmental compliance and due diligence assessments, environmental appeal processes and assisting with litigious matters. She has also assisted with drafting legal aspects of provincial and municipal coastal management programmes and drafting coastal management by-laws.
Ricky has a decade of legal experience - from playing an integral role in the State Capture investigations, advising clients on environmental and marine law matters, to pioneering legal advisory services in the nascent cannabis and plant medicines industries.
Ricky joined Cullinan and Associates as a Consultant Attorney in May 2021 after a stint in the corporate sector as legal counsel for Africa's largest cannabis company. Ricky qualified with an LLB degree from the Nelson Mandela University, where he studied environmental law as a final year elective whilst also penning a thesis on the need to relook the punitive cannabis legal framework in South Africa - both as a means of harm reduction, and to achieve environmental sustainability through the industrial uses of cannabis. As a final year law student, Ricky read Cormac Cullinan's Wild Law which inspired his environmental law crusade and reassured him that his ideal for a more sustainable future with all species and life systems on Earth living in harmony with equal rights was not far-stretched and something which could be achieved within his lifetime.
Ricky completed his articles at BLC Attorneys in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) where he gained significant experience in land use planning matters whilst pioneering the environmental law department at the firm. He was responsible for advising listed companies on environmental, health and safety, and air quality licensing and compliance issues, and provided the initial legal advice to a marine conversation client which culminated in the successful judicial review of the Government's decision to ban the catching of the Red Steenbras.
Ricky then joined Boqwana Burns Inc. and quickly climbed the ranks to become a partner at the firm. He played a part in the State Capture investigations where he gained a real depth of knowledge on forensic investigations and litigation. Ricky also advised on the Small-Town Revitalisation Project in the Eastern Cape and was the lead attorney on numerous high-profile procurement/tender review cases.
Although Ricky had a long relationship with the cannabis plant and her community, it was at Boqwana Burns that he started pioneering legal advice in the cannabis space, where he represented legacy cannabis farmers of the amaMpondo Nation in invoking a legal strategy to end the Government's two-decade-long aerial eradication efforts using glyphosate sprayed from helicopters to eradicate subsistence cannabis fields in the former Transkei Homeland. Ricky is also a member of the legal team for the Trial of the Plant which is a pending High Court constitutional challenge against cannabis prohibition in South Africa. He represented a cannabis advocacy NGO to apply for access to Livestream broadcast the court proceedings in the Trial of the Plant, which resulted in a groundbreaking Full Bench judgment on the Right to Freedom of Expression. By all accounts, Ricky understands cannabis, and cannabis understands Ricky.
Ricky advises clients in the public and private sectors on all aspects of environmental law, cannabis and African traditional plant medicines, and the regulatory frameworks and green business opportunities arising in those sectors. These are all areas of law where Ricky is celebrated for providing responsible and innovative legal advice, and meaningful guidance, to those who are conscious to make a difference for the ultimate benefit of future generations and the Earth Community.
Ricky is also an author with his work The Decriminalisation of Marijuana in South Africa: Higher Environmental Management and Protection (HEMP) published by Lambert Academic Publishers in 2011, and he has recently authored a chapter in After the War on Drugs: Harm Reduction and Human Rights in Post-Prohibition Scenarios to be published by Routledge in 2022.
Sarah has an excellent track-record in environmental litigation in the High Court. She has a particular interest in biodiversity law.
Sarah was admitted as an attorney in 1997. She joined Cullinans as an associate in 2005 and became a director of the firm in March 2008. Before joining the firm she practised in Durban as a litigation specialist and later in London at two international commercial law firms. Sarah is currently practising as a consultant to the firm.
Sarah has specialised in environmental law since 2005. Her work since then has included providing detailed opinions for clients in both the public and private sectors on all aspects of environmental law and assisting clients in all sectors with environmental compliance. She has a thorough understanding of administrative law and has drafted numerous administrative appeals and responses for various clients. She has also provided advice, mentoring and training to Government on various aspects of environmental law and governance.
Sarah has expertise in environmental impact assessment law, having given advice to both applicants for and interested and affected parties in numerous applications for environmental authorisations and has also acted as a specialist reviewer for the Western Cape Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning in several applications for authorisation.
She also has expertise in water law and was an Additional Member of the Water Tribunal between 2019 and 2023. Since completing her Masters dissertation on the Threatened or Protected Species Regulations, Sarah has had special interest in biodiversity law and she currently advises several NGOs on matters relating mainly to wild animal conservation and welfare. Sarah was the lead drafter on a project to draft national legislation for the then Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and has assisted with other legislative drafting projects of the firm. She was a member of the Transaction Advisory Group appointed to advise National Treasury on the first round of renewable energy procurement from independent power producers (REIPPP).
Stefania is a UCT qualified Paralegal with a BSc in History and Sociology (Universita`La Sapienza - Rome) and currently serves as the Programme Coordinator at the Wild Law Institute. With over a decade of experience in the wildlife protection sector, she has been instrumental in developing programmes and shaping policies to protect biodiversity while advocating for land and aquatic wildlife protection and environmental conservation. Driven by her strong interest in behavioural ecology, Stefania has focused on various projects, investigations and campaigns to dismantle the controversial lion-bone and the captive elephant industries in South Africa. On the research field, she has focused on overfishing and chacma baboons in areas bordering human development.
Collaborating with numerous partner organisations, Stefania has coordinated national and international networks dedicated to environmental conservation, advocacy, research, wildlife protection, and promoting the rights of Nature. Her expertise extends to the complexities of wildlife trade mechanisms. Since 2015, she has actively engaged with the South African parliament and government institutions to advance legislation and policies in these areas.