Here at Luminex, our Legal Affairs department’s two highest priorities are the relationships we foster with corporate partners and the security we maintain over our intellectual property. To best sustain our partnerships and intellectual material, we rely upon the expertise of a robust, highly specialized legal department. One such expert is Jessica Bernethy, Corporate Paralegal, whose role includes crafting new agreements and answering the many legal questions of her colleagues. She joined Luminex in 2016 and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration with a minor in management from the University of New Orleans, as well as an advanced technical certificate for paralegal studies from Austin Community College.
Q: What are your responsibilities at Luminex?
A: If employees have questions about anything related to legal matters, they can loop me in first — I may not know the answer, but I will do my best to assist in obtaining what they need, whether that’s an answer from an attorney, a drafted document, or to be pointed to a different direction all together. Each inquiry from an employee helps me to learn something new, so I love what I do. We handle new agreements, renewal of contracts, legal review of all materials, and more. My job is to support our attorneys in their role, as well as the employees at Luminex, as the employees and the company as a whole are our clients.
Q: How did you get started on this career path?
A: I always knew I wanted to be within the legal field, but the field is so diverse that I didn’t really know a specific end point of that career. Post undergraduate, I debated going to law school, but to ensure I would truly enjoy it prior to more schooling and potentially a lot of debt, I decided to take some paralegal classes first. I loved it! Being a paralegal lets me find the answer to the puzzle that nobody else can find without having to work the hours or having the liability of an attorney.
Q: What did you do before joining Luminex?
A: When I moved to Texas, my first job in this career path was as a disciplinary clerk at the women’s death row prison in Gatesville. After several additional moves throughout Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to include the Parole Division and Probation Department, I ended up in TDCJ’s Office of the General Counsel here in Austin. After a few more years, I transferred to the District Attorney’s Office in Travis County, and worked in several of their internal departments as well, including the court system, general state, environmental quality, and workman’s compensation departments. Overall, I spent about 12 years working within criminal law.
Q: What drew you to the company?
A: After spending all that time in criminal law, the idea of being in a different field of law really appealed to me. It gets overwhelming to see the worst: either the worst day in someone’s life or the worst in people, especially because you don’t really have any “wins” in criminal law. I had a friend who worked here at Luminex who told me that the paralegal position was open. When I started learning about what Luminex did, it was really intriguing to me. I’m not a scientific-minded person, but the possibility of being able to help Luminex, in my own way, work to improve people’s health and lives, it felt like a really interesting opportunity. It has been a huge learning experience but I love working here and I’m always learning something new.
Q: If you could solve any clinical or genetic challenge, what would it be?
A: I would have a hard time picking just one. My family has been seriously affected by cancer (colon, breast, and lung), Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), and thyroid problems such as Graves’ disease and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Eradicating any of those would be wonderful, as they all affect not only the people going through the ailment, but their family and friends as well.
Q: If you weren’t at Luminex, where would you be?
A: I would love to have been a fighter pilot in the US Air Force like my dad was for 30 years. That being said, I get road rage even in the grocery store, so perhaps giving me control of a multimillion-dollar piece of equipment that can fly at almost 1,500 mph might not be such a good idea.
Q: What is something about you that no one at Luminex knows?
A: Most people probably don’t know I’m pretty good at billiards (or at least I used to be). If they ever decide to put in some sort of employee relaxation area in our local office, I would love it if a pool table was included.
Q: What’s your favorite thing to do in Austin on the weekend?
A: My parents have a ranch north of Fort Cavazos (aka Ft. Hood), and we love going up there and spending time with the family. But in the summer, it is imperative for most Texans to go “tubing” to cool off in the Texas heat. It’s so popular that there are whole businesses that will rent you tubes, drop you off at the beginning of the run, and pick you up after you’ve floated down the river for a couple of hours.