CMHRA Annual HR Summit: Practical HR Strategies for Less Scary Workplaces

Join Verrill Partner Tawny Alvarez for the Central Maine Human Resource Association’s 3rd Annual Summit, taking place on September 25, 2026. Tawny will present “Out of the Fog: Understanding Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave.” 

Maine’s new Paid Family and Medical Leave program has left many employers and HR professionals trying to sort through questions, confusion, and uncertainty. By the time of the summit, the program will have been live for nearly four months, making this an important opportunity to step back, review what has been learned, and gain practical clarity. In this breakout session, Tawny Alvarez, Esq. will share a view of the first few months of the operational Maine PFML program from a legal perspective focusing on areas that create legal risk for organizations and best practices to minimize those risks while maintaining employee rights to the benefit.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to: 

• Identify difficult PFML issues that have arisen
• Respond with best practices to those difficult PFML issues.
• Identify the previously unforeseen gaps in the program and the risks they create.
• Respond with best practices to those previously unforeseen gaps to reduce risk.