Meet the Team

The Alternative Heath Law Firm team has over fifty years of legal expertise in alternative healthcare and other highly regulated industries. Additionally, the team also has professional experts in the fields of botany, pharmacology, and product development. This unique and varied background and experience enables our attorneys to approach problems from a business, legal and healthcare provider perspective and as a result, provide our clients exceptional legal support and service.


  • Founder

    With over thirty years of legal experience, Susan oversees a team of professionals, consisting of product developers, attorneys, and consultants. Her practice’s expertise is primarily in the field of alternative and integrative healthcare, with a specific focus in botanical medicine. Her clients include practitioners, providers, associations, and natural product manufacturers, suppliers, and retailers. Susan regularly serves in a leadership role on projects involving access to plant medicine, such as cannabis and other psychoactive botanicals.

    In addition to practicing law, Susan is a yoga teacher and alternative healthcare practitioner. She is a member of The Florida Bar and the National Ayurvedic Medical Association. Susan is a graduate of Florida State University and Boston University School of Law.


  • Product Development Specialist

    Matthew has over 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and natural product industries, where he has lead preclinical, clinical, and overall product development teams for many of the world’s largest R&D-based healthcare companies. He has extensive experience in the design and conduct of both qualitative and quantitative human efficacy/safety studies, and has strategically recruited and managed teams of world-class scientists – including a team with two Nobel laureates – for business and product development initiatives. Matthew has considerable experience with both US and Canadian government regulators, and has been instrumental in the government approval of multiple medicines and botanical-based products that are marketed in both countries.


  • Consulting Biologist

    Nina is a botanist with over 12 years’ experience identifying plants, mapping habitats for plant community type, performing wetlands restoration, and surveying for rare plants. Nina is also a licensed massage therapist and has studied Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, which emphasizes using food and plants as preventative and curative medicine. As an ethnobotanist for a botanical advocacy company in Canada, she characterized and reviewed entheogenic plants for potential present day medicinal use. She writes ethnobotanical monographs (plant profile) which includes plants’ growth form, morphological description, geographic distribution, past/present cultural history and use, chemical constituents, dosage, and toxicity. Nina’s current focus is on local edible and medicinal plants.

  • Paul is a corporate attorney with almost 30 years of experience.  While his practice is broad, he has focused principally in the financial, technology and healthcare sectors. He began practicing as a public M&A and securities lawyer, primarily representing public companies, boards, special committees and executive officers.  He currently represents founders, investors and other equity holders, as well as start-up and other closely held companies, in a wide range of strategic planning and legal analysis implementation - from formation, investment, financing, operation through, if applicable, ultimate sale.


  • Consultant

    Jim serves as a consultant to the Alternative Health Law Firm, and regularly assists clients with product development initiatives in the food/functional food, personal care/cosmetic and OTC drug/API sectors. Jim has over 20 years of experience in the natural product industry. His areas of expertise include formulation chemistry, product development, intellectual property and regulatory oversight.

    Jim currently operates a natural product innovation laboratory in Tampa, Florida. He previously served as Vice President of a nutraceutical and personal care products company that developed products and therapies for the cardiovascular market. Jim was also the Technical Director for a contract manufacturer of personal care, cosmetic, and dietary supplement products. Jim co-developed and successfully patented a natural and green line of antimicrobial ingredients for cosmetics and foods. He is inventor or co-inventor on 4 U.S. patents ranging from industrial products, natural, plant derived antimicrobial ingredients to antimicrobial therapies for humans and animals.

    Jim holds a B.S. degree in Biology from the University of South Florida, and is an active member of the Natural Products Association and Society of Cosmetic Chemists

  • Aubrey serves as Associate Attorney at Alternative Health Law Firm (AHLF). Aubrey joined AHLF in September 2020 and assists clients in a variety of areas including corporate transactions, contracts, government affairs, international business, product development, and regulatory compliance. Aubrey currently resides in Washington, D.C., and has considerable experience in government affairs, having been involved in both state and federal politics for over five years.

    Aubrey earned her Bachelor of Science in International Affairs from Florida State University and her Juris Doctor degree, as well as her international law certificate, from Florida State University College of Law. Aubrey is a current member of The Florida Bar, and during law school, Aubrey was a member of the Journal of Transnational Law & Policy, the Student Bar Association and International Law Students Association.