Co-authored by Wayne N. Outten, Anne Golden, and Nantiya Ruan, 2001.
Today more than ever, trained employees are valued by employers who want to do everything in their power to keep them from leaving and taking their skills and knowledge with them. Undoubtedly, this is due in part to our nation’s unemployment rate reaching a thirty-year low. Add the current business environment of increased mobility, decreased loyalty, and the tremendous amount of capital resources spent in creating intellectual property, and companies are increasingly requiring key employees to sign harsh non-compete agreements to discourage employee defection or “corporate raiding.”
The law still favors free mobility of employees. But along with an increased number of employers requiring employees to sign non-competition agreements comes an increased number of suits to enforce these restrictive covenants. Consequently, the body of law governing this area has been changing. This outline will give practical advice to employee advocates on ways to best protect their clients’ interests when confronted with non-competition agreements and will examine the emerging trends in this narrow, but increasingly pertinent, area of employment law.
