Hiring an applicant who has a non-compete or non-solicit agreement with a prior employer creates risk for the both the individual and the new employer. The prior employer can sue both the applicant for violating the contract...more
Minnesota is banning employment non-compete agreements and restricting provisions that require non-Minnesota laws or venues for disputes. The law will become effective on July 1, 2023, and will apply to agreements entered...more
The FTC’s proposed rule banning non-competes nationally has received much attention, but the far likelier change to non-compete law for Minnesotans is from the all-DFL state government. Barely into session, the Minnesota...more
The Minnesota legislature is currently considering HF999, which would ban all non-compete agreements with all Minnesota employees making less than a certain salary threshold, and would require garden leave payments for...more
On July 8, 2021, President Biden announced that he would issue an Executive Order (EO) calling on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to adopt rules curtailing the use of non-compete agreements. While the announcement offers...more
In a first-of-its-kind decision, NJL non-compete litigator Katie Connolly convinced a Minnesota federal court to apply a novel advice-of-counsel defense to an employer’s hiring of an individual with a non-compete agreement....more
The Minnesota legislature is currently considering HF 3673, which purports to ban all non-compete agreements with all employees, and may also ban all customer non-solicit and non-disclosure agreements. The language of the...more
The American Bar Association just issued an opinion about what lawyers and law firms can and should do when lawyers move from one firm to another. A key point of the opinion is that, according to the ABA, “ethics rules do not...more
In reaction to the recent proliferation of non-compete agreements, courts and legislatures are increasingly trying to find ways to limit their use. The latest attempt is at the federal congressional level. This week, Florida...more
Your employee quits without notice or explanation. You discover that she moved to a competitor in violation of her non-compete agreement, and what’s worse, days before her resignation, she downloaded your trade secrets onto a...more
The Scenario -
Your company has a great applicant for a job opening, Jane, but you learn during the interview process that Jane signed a non-compete agreement with her current employer. You can quickly spot some reasons...more
Many non-California employers view the enactment of California Labor Code Section 925 as destroying any possibility of avoiding the state’s restrictive covenants laws for California-based employees. But there is hope! With...more