Anita Famili

Anita Famili is a partner in the Firm’s Los Angeles office and leads the Firm’s real estate transactions and finance practice and the cannabis and CBD practice. She represents owners, operators, lenders, developers, investors and others in a range of financing, development, leasing and investment-related transactions.

Anita guides real estate investment trusts, national retail grocers, public utilities, and other commercial developers and owners/users in acquiring, entitling, developing, leasing, building, financing, deleveraging and joint-venturing property throughout the United States. Clients turn to her to assemble, lead and manage major real estate transactions as well as coordinate and collaborate with other legal experts, third-party operators, vendors, outside managers, developers and consultants.

Anita is a leader in the cannabis and CBD legal space, having represented professional cannabis businesses for almost a decade on corporate structuring; joint venture formations; strategic partnership agreements; celebrity licensing deals; financings and equity raises; farm and dispensary acquisitions; development and land use matters; leasing; service agreements; Internet, media, advertising and FDA advisement; and licensing matters.

As part of that, Anita manages Manatt’s cannabis and CBD practice, composed of over 50 professionals whose traditional practices include real estate, financial services, land use, corporate, tax, entertainment, advertising, intellectual property, litigation, digital media and government. Anita’s clients in the cannabis and CBD industries range from public to private companies. She has served as a guest lecturer at the UC Irvine School of Law Cannabis and the Law class.

Anita has extensive experience in secured and unsecured financings (including multistate, syndicated, construction, bridge and mezzanine loans), leveraged acquisitions, complex subordination and intercreditor arrangements, and letters of credit, and in perfecting security interests in collateral. In the project development area, Anita represents governmental and quasi-public entities, private bidders, and other stakeholders in the long-term concession of major infrastructure projects and large project assets.

Anita has been recognized as a Top-Ranked Attorney in Cannabis Law: Western United States and Real Estate (California: Southern) by Chambers USA. GlobeSt. identified her as one of CRE’s Women of Influence in 2024. The Daily Journal has also named her to its Top Cannabis Lawyer and Top Women Lawyer lists in 2022. She was included as a Top 100 Lawyer in 2022 by the Los Angeles Business Journal and as a Global Top 200 Cannabis Attorney in 2022 and 2023 by the Cannabis Law Journal. Anita was also named a 2022 Cannabis Law Trailblazer by The National Law Journal and a 2021 Cannabis MVP by Law360. She was also recognized as a Next Generation Partner in Real Estate by The Legal 500 US from 2020-2024, and as a commercial real estate “Visionary” in 2021-2022 and 2024 issues of the Los Angeles Times’ Commercial Real Estate Magazine. Additionally, she was recognized as a Real Estate and Construction Law Trailblazer by The National Law Journal in 2022. Anita has also been named in The Best Lawyers in America guide since 2020. Early in her career, Anita received the Real Property Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Outstanding Young Lawyer Award and has been named one of Real Estate Forum’s Women of Influence. She is a frequent speaker and author on current real estate and cannabis and CBD issues.

She also serves on USC Real Estate and Business Law Forum’s Program and Planning Committees and as a member of Law360’s Cannabis Editorial Advisory Board.