When you are running a business, you need to do what you can to protect it. If you hire new employees, you probably want to set some rules about what they can do while they work for you and how they will take their skills and training from this job into a new position at a different company. Some companies that want to protect their trade secrets and other important information make employees sign a non-solicitation agreement. This prevents former employees from actively recruiting for another company, but there is a high legal bar for such agreements to clear. Instead of drafting one yourself, you may want the assistance of our commercial litigation attorneys who have extensive experience with trade secrets, non-solicitation & non-compete agreements.
Why Would You Need a Non-Solicitation Agreement?
When an employee leaves your company, that can leave you with a big gap to fill. If your employee leaves and actively tries to get other employees to leave with them and join a competitor, that can obviously cause problems for any business. A non-solicitation agreement bars workers from doing this. Such an agreement can also prevent someone from taking their employer’s customers and jumping ship to a competitor or their own business.
How Can a Non-Solicitation Agreement Conform to NY Law?
In order to be enforceable, a non-solicitation agreement cannot be too general. In most cases, an agreement is going to be easy to challenge unless:
- It does not impose undue hardship on an employee
- It does not harm the public
- An employee could release trade secrets or confidential information about an employer’s customers
- An employee has developed unique client relationships as a result of the employer’s investment
A business does have the right to protect its trade secrets and its client lists. It just cannot draft an agreement that essentially bars a former employee from working in their industry.
Is a Non-Compete Agreement Better?
A non-compete agreement is also designed to protect a company’s interests, but such pacts can be seen as far more restrictive. These agreements say an employee cannot go on to work at a competitor after they have worked with you.
The issue here is that you still need to be sure that an agreement will be enforceable in New York, and if you overstep and make your non-compete agreements too broad you are going to end up just having them invalidated by courts. It can sometimes be easier to make a non-solicitation agreement stick because it is harder to say that such an agreement can keep someone from making a living.
Contact Our Law Firm Today
So if you are looking for the best way to protect your business and any trade secrets, contact David A. Gallo & Associates, LLP. We can help you draft enforceable agreements that will give you peace of mind.
