Kirsten Hotchkiss is Enjoying a Well-Earned Retirement After Decades in Employment Law

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If you’re the retiring vice president of global employment law, having spent more than thirty years as in-house counsel, most recently with American Express Global Business Travel, thousands of moments, cases, and matters bear mentioning. The one that stands out to Kirsten Hotchkiss? Arguing the fate of two ogres in front of a jury of children.

The things that matter most to you when you look back at your career aren’t likely the moments that mean the most now. Hotchkiss, who has made an appearance along with her mother in these pages previously, has been practicing long enough to recall the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. She’s handled and written about employment law for decades. And the moment that comes to mind when she’s asked to recount her career highlights include characters from the movie Shrek.

“It was ‘Bring Your Child to Work’ day, and we wrote a whole play about Shrek and Fiona being criminally charged with polluting the swamp,” the departing VP says. “Lord Farquaad was the prosecuting witness. I watched my colleagues fight over who got to play Donkey, the defense witness. I had a friend who worked for the Great Swamp in NJ, and we brought her in as an expert witness. And then we let the kids act as the jury.”

Or how about the adventures of “Brad” and “Tod”? Hotchkiss was tasked with creating a presentation about document retention. Instead of a quick PowerPoint, she created a video with two characters, Brad, a Business Record Active Document frequently accessed and used in ongoing business processes, and Tod, a Temporary Office Document who was much more laid back and “chill” than his counterpart.

“The whole Brad and Tod saga came out pretty well,” Hotchkiss recalls. “Brad wore a suit and was very formal, very important. Todd was more of a surfer dude who cuts out when the going gets tough. I completely understand that this seems odd to be talking about, but I loved these moments.”

That’s the most important thing one walks away with from this departing employment lawyer. She genuinely loves what she does. She’s found great joy and creative outlet in what others may see as rudimentary exercises, and she has made a business difference in a role that is often saddled with the label of “nonrevenue producing.” It’s not that you can’t have a career like Kirsten Hotchkiss, it’s that your wiring must be a little different to see the world the way she does, and the world is all the better for it. “I loved being able to train supervisors and other leaders about the nuances of employment law, and I did it with storytelling, skits, and games,” said Hotchkiss, who also created an employment law Jeopardy!-style game for the HR team, and wrote compliance blogs about movies, such as “Sleepless in Seattle but Fired in Baltimore.”

It’s not that Hotchkiss is all fun and games. During the pandemic, her organization had to sever relationships with a significant number of employees. A travel company was the first hit and one of the last to recover. Hotchkiss was able to work with the HR organization to take advantage of a state-funded employment benefits program that ultimately saved her organization millions of dollars.

“The Supplemental Unemployment Benefits program allowed the company to net severance payments against unemployment benefits,” Hotchkiss explains. “It didn’t seem like many companies understood or knew about the program, but it was very important for us.”

The VP can go deep into the weeds on a niche employment detail so quickly and so effortlessly that when she moves on, there’s an unpacking period that needs to happen to reflect on how much information the lawyer just laid in your lap. It’s the sort of knowledge base one hopes to possess as they celebrate their retirement. But Hotchkiss says she’s just grateful to have been allowed the chance to operate with autonomy for the bulk of her career.

“When I look back at my career, I’m just fortunate to have been given a lot of freedom,” the attorney says. “I worked with great people, I was allowed to bring in other great people, and I didn’t have to apply for a job in thirty years. Every role I had came through people I worked with in the past. When you build and maintain those relationships, you’re able to have that kind of continuity. And so, to younger people, I’d encourage you never to burn those bridges.”

Hotchkiss will likely keep practicing law, though she doesn’t relish the idea of sitting for the South Carolina (where she and her husband now live) bar exam at this point in her life. In the meantime, she’s wrapping up her chairpersonship of her homeowners’ association, a chance, she jokes, to go head-to-head with former CEOs and other C-suite executives for the first time in her career.

Hotchkiss says she and her husband are both young enough to thoroughly enjoy this next chapter of their lives together.  They are prepping for a cross-country bike ride next year.

“We met playing volleyball, so it’s not too far out of the norm for us,” Hotchkiss explains. “I’m also looking forward to playing at the Senior Nationals volleyball tournament on a women’s sixties team this year.”

Hotchkiss says she’ll resurrect Toil and Trouble, an employment blog that went on hiatus during her tenure at AmEx GBT, but she’ll resume writing again now. She still has a lot of knowledge to share, and as long as she’s not in the middle of biking across the US, she’s happy to take some time to share her experiences.

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