Minnesota Law Magazine Features Scott Wright’s Professional Career and Growth

Minnesota Law highlighted partner Scott Wright in its spring issue of Minnesota Law Magazine, “Getting Down to Work,” covering alumni who are now labor and employment attorneys.

Prior to law school, Wright researched trade issues in Panama on a Fulbright grant, translated for Cuban refugees, and worked on a hog and dairy farm and later in a meat-processing plant. These experiences prepared him to address one of the most urgent issues food and agriculture companies face today: the risk of hiring underage workers in violation of state and federal labor law.

“The big issue that we’re working with our clients in food and ag on right now is how to proactively identify and prevent the employment of people who are in fact under age 18 in jobs that are defined by law as hazardous,” Wright said. “Businesses face devastating liability even when they unwittingly employ people who are under age 18.”

Wright is sought out as a subject matter authority in part because of his familiarity with various forms of documents individuals use to prove their identity and establish that they have employment authorization.

“I have looked at literally hundreds of thousands of documents — immigration documents, passports, driver’s licenses, state (identification cards), Social Security cards, birth certificates,” Wright said. “I’ve seen it all, in terms of developing expertise in what is real and what is fake.”

As leader of the firm’s immigration global mobility team, Wright said, “My greatest passion has been the development of this team. When I talk about something that I’m most proud of, for me it’s in a big firm environment to have put this team together that is so diverse in language skill, nationality backgrounds, and professional expertise.”