Interview: Beth Tyner Jones

Legal impact

From the courts to employers, COVID touched every aspect of the legal sector

Beth Tyner Jones

Triangle Offices Managing Partner – Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP

What makes the Triangle such an attractive market for the legal sector? The strength of our economy, which is grounded in diverse, sophisticated businesses, along with the significant presence of world-class higher education institutions that make for a rich foundation for growth. Think about all the businesses that have grown out of here, such as SAS. The region is replete with examples like that. It’s a terrific place to practice law.

What has employment-related legal work looked like during the pandemic? COVID touched nearly every aspect of employment law. The courts slowed down as we saw less litigation and we spent more time addressing how employers respond to COVID and what accommodations were needed. Of course, everybody still wants to know if we can or should require vaccination for our employees, which they’re working through now. I also believe many employers just want to get past this and focus on what’s next.

How would you characterize the cybersecurity and privacy landscape from a legal viewpoint? With the increase in remote work, you have employees working from home, which leads to greater data privacy concerns than before COVID when working in person. We’ve been seeing increased attacks and risk. In addition, many government bodies, both in the United States and internationally, have strengthened their regulations aimed at protecting individual privacy. I see this continuing to be a high-demand area for legal services.

How are companies re-evaluating their ESG goals? Depending on what generational view of the workforce you’re looking at, portions of the workforce have high expectations for their employers being engaged around the topics of the time. It can be an obstacle to retention if employers do not. It’s a very divisive time since as people start to work again in person, they are having trouble properly addressing divisive topics. Divisive topics, along with a lack of socialization in the workplace due to remote work for a long time and social media, are providing employers with a lot of challenges.

What is your outlook for the Triangle? We are on the precipice of extremely significant growth for our area and region. We’re expecting to be challenged as a region to keep all of our schools, roads and buildings up to the task of keeping up with the growth. With those challenges will come tremendous opportunities. We will attract new businesses and new competition. I think this growth will be unprecedented.