Page 22 - BusinessWest March 17, 2025

“Many employers are walking on eggshells around their employees; they are afraid to say or do anything to upset them out of fear that they will get sued, even if the employee is a toxic employee. But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
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Cannon
Continued from page 20
business going,” she said, and all that certainly applies to her current side business, Brew Practitioners, a brewery she and her husband, Joe Eckerle, have owned for the past decade.
After he took up craft brewing, the couple embarked on an educational brewery tour in Germany, and Cannon took a course at the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chi- cago, which is a brewing school.
“By the time we got back here, I was like, ‘you know what? We have so much beer, and we’re just giving it away; we might as well start a business.’ So we did — we started it in Florence, and then moved here after COVID,” she said of the East Longmeadow property that houses both Brew Practitioners and General Counsel by Cannon, as well as a small library she uses as a meeting and com- munity space.
“We have remained small. We’re self-funded,” she said. “We haven’t grown bigger, but we’ve maintained a profit- able business for going on 10 years now. And we love it. It’s our happy space.”
Putting her law hat back on, she added, “because I’m an entrepreneur, I understand where the needs are, and
I understand the pain points. Especially in the brewery industry, I understand that there’s the feds, there’s the state, there’s the local licensing, and I know how much time these things take. So I can walk the walk with
my brewery clients. I know exactly what they’re going through. I know that, if I’ve dealt with something in my business, the rest of these breweries are dealing with this too; let me see if I can help them. And wineries and dis- tilleries are similar.”
Constant Learning
Cannon emphasized more than once that, while litiga- tion is exciting, challenging and all-consuming, so, too is being a fractional general counsel.
“I have a growth mindset,” she said. “I spend a
good deal of time on continuing education and keeping apprised of new trends and issues in the corporate world. I have to be on top of all the legislation, all the regula- tions, all the cases that come out, in addition to new busi- ness endeavors and new trends.”
As one example, she is now taking a 12-week leader- ship class at Western New England University where she’s learning about AI and how businesses should strate- gically manage that trend. “My clients need that informa- tion; my knowledge is for their use.”
Because she represents only corporations and busi- nesses, not individuals, Cannon sometimes refers busi- ness to colleagues at other firms. That narrower focus keeps her busy as a solo practitioner, though she’s looking to hire an attorney or two in the coming year.
One example of what keeps her on her toes is the changing regulatory environment brought on by a new federal administration — especially one so aggressive about changing workplace rules and guidance.
“Regulations, by definition, are supposed to be pur- poseful and narrowly tailored to meet that purpose. I will say over the years that ‘narrowly tailored to meet that pur- pose’ has been broadened, very much so. So, I agree with regulations if they are purposeful, and if that purpose is a sound purpose.
That has gone
to the wayside
Cannon
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Continued on page 38
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