Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA): Creating compliance and leave of absence programs

Megan Knowlton Balne | Hyland Levin Shapiro LLP

Megan Knowlton Balne, a partner with the law firm Hyland Levin Shapiro LLP, leads the Employment Practice Group. Megan also serves as the Chair of the Legal/Legislative Committee for the Human Resource Association of Southern New Jersey. Megan was recognized by the New Jersey Law Journal as a New Leader of the Bar and also received the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Professional Achievement Award. Most recently, Megan received the NJBIZ 2020 “Forty Under 40” Award and was the recipient of the Katherine D. Hartman Woman in the Profession Award from the Burlington County Bar Association.

Kirsten Hotchkiss, Esq. | GBT US LLC

A recognized compliance officer, employment attorney and entrepreneur, Ms. Hotchkiss joined GBT US LLC, dba American Express Global Business Travel, in June 2014. She is responsible for managing the employment legal matters for its approximately 17,000-person workforce.

Ms. Hotchkiss has been practicing law for more than 35 years. Immediately prior to joining GBT, she was the managing member of Hotchkiss Law, LLC, a firm devoted to helping companies comply with their workforce legal obligations, and where she served as a qualified mediator of employment disputes. She also founded EmLaw Training, a consulting firm dedicated to training supervisors and human resource professionals on their legal employment risks and obligations.

From 2006 – 2013, she served as senior vice president, Employment Counsel for Wyndham Worldwide, a global hospitality company with over 25,000 employees. Reporting to the General Counsel, she managed a team of employment attorneys and paralegals who advised the Company on all aspects of employment law and policy and defended the Company in employment-related actions.

She also served as Wyndham’s Corporate Compliance Officer from 2006 – 2012, during which time she developed and managed Wyndham’s first compliance program. In 2010 and 2011 Wyndham received EthisphereTM Institute’s World’s Most Ethical Companies award, and in 2012, NJ Biz awarded Ms. Hotchkiss the NJ Corporate Compliance Counsel Award.
Prior to joining Wyndham, Ms. Hotchkiss served as in-house Employment Counsel to Cendant Corporation and to Prudential Securities and spent six years as an Associate with the boutique employment and labor firm of Grotta, Glassman & Hoffman, where she practiced as a litigation associate representing management in the defense of employment related actions.

Throughout her career, Ms. Hotchkiss has remained actively involved in bar and civic activities. In addition to holding leadership positions in the NJ State Bar Association, she has served on the boards of over 10 non-profit organizations, including 6 years with Planned Parenthood of Northern New Jersey and 6 years with Cornerstone Family Programs in Morristown, NJ. She also served as president of Historic Speedwell, where the telegraph was perfected, and oversaw its transition to become a government owned property. Currently, she serves on the Board of the Mitchelville Preservation Project, an organization dedicated to preserving the first self-governed town of formerly enslaved people in America. She also serves on the Governance Committee of her Community, Colleton River Club, an unincorporated association in Bluffton, SC.

1. FMLA – Review of the legal protections and employer obligations | 11:00am – 11:30am
2. Discussion of related leave laws | 11:30am – 12:00pm

• ADA/State Discrimination Laws
• GINA
• Anti-Retaliation Provisions

Break | 12:00pm – 12:10pm

3. Difference between Leave and Compensation | 12:10pm – 12:30pm
4. “Leave” by Example – how leave laws interplay in examples of employee scenarios | 12:30pm – 12:50pm
5. Tips for managing Intermittent and Reduced Hours Leave | 12:50pm – 1:10pm