The phone rings on a Wednesday afternoon. In a panic, your longtime client explains that a hotshot employee has unexpectedly fled to a competitor a few months before the launch of a top secret new product. The client is worried that the competitive advantage gained from years of research and development work could go up in smoke if the departing employee shares confidential information about the new product with the competitor in advance of its launch. The client has already heard murmurs of other employees being asked to follow their former boss over to the competitor.

Time is of the essence, and the decisions that you make in advising your client over the first 48 hours after getting this call could very well dictate the ultimate outcome of the dispute. This article is the first of a two-part series. In part one, we identify the 10 questions you’ll want to ask your client within 48 hours of getting the call from an employer seeking to prevent a former employee from engaging in competitive activity. In part two, we’ll identify the 10 questions you’ll want to immediately answer if you’re representing an employee seeking to avoid the enforcement of a restrictive covenant or confidentiality agreement.

Originally published in Law360 - July 2015.