Jon Heyl Elected NCBA President-Elect
Jon Heyl of Charlotte is the new president-elect of the North Carolina Bar Association. He was elected on Friday, June 26, during the 2020 NCBA Annual Meeting at the N.C. Bar Center in Cary.
Heyl will be installed as the 127th president of the NCBA next June at the 2021 Annual Meeting, and will also serve in 2021-22 as president of the North Carolina Bar Foundation.
“I am honored and humbled,” said Heyl, a partner in Fox Rothschild and member of the firm’s litigation team. “I have worked with many great leaders of the North Carolina Bar Association, and it is an honor to follow in their footsteps and to be a part of this great organization.”
Due to the coronavirus restrictions, the annual meeting was held with limited in-person attendance and webcast statewide to the NCBA membership.
“The work of the North Carolina Bar Association has never been more important than it is right now,” Heyl said. “Now is the time when we as a bar really need to pull together to address all of the challenges that we are currently facing in 2020.”
Heyl will serve as president-elect in 2020-21 and chair the Audit & Finance Committees of the Association and the Foundation. His name was placed in nomination by Jacqueline Grant, immediate past president and chair of the Past Presidents’ Council, which annually selects the nominee for president-elect.
Seconding speeches were provided by longtime law partners Larry Sitton, a past president of the NCBA/NCBF, and Patti Ramseur, a former NCBA/NCBF board member. Heyl joined the firm, which later became Smith Moore Leatherwood, in 1998. The firm combined with Fox Rothschild in 2018.
Heyl’s record of service within the NCBA is extensive. He is a past chair of the Antitrust and Complex Business Disputes Section and recipient of its Distinguished Service Award. Heyl has also served as chair of the Membership Committee and Judicial Independence Committee, and as co-chair of the 4ALL Task Force.
He served on the NCBA Board of Governors and NCBF Board of Directors from 2010-13.
“The firm has always been very encouraging of my involvement in the North Carolina Bar Association,” Heyl said. “That was the impetus in the beginning, and once I got involved, I enjoyed being part of something larger that entailed a lot of people working together doing good things for the bar and North Carolina.”
A native of Athens, Ga., Heyl graduated with honors from East Carolina University in 1995. He attended the University of North Carolina School of Law, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the North Carolina Law Review and was an inductee of the Order of the Coif. Heyl graduated from UNC School of Law with high honors in 1998.