Competition Law
Enforce a Non-Compete
You’ve terminated or lost an employee who signed an agreement prohibiting that employee from unfairly competing with you. As you likely know all too well, ex-employees can do immense damage with minimal effort—diverting business, soliciting co-workers, and misappropriating sensitive information for the ex-employee’s use or, worse yet, a direct competitor’s use.
Even if the employee was not vital to your organization, perhaps you’ve decided to set a strong precedent to your remaining employees and competitors: you refuse to open a floodgate by letting your ex-employees ignore their agreements with you. You are acutely aware that your competitors are closely monitoring your decision to enforce—or not enforce—your employment agreements. In this fiercely competitive market, competitors are more aware than ever of low-hanging fruit, and those who don’t enforce their agreements are often the first poached.
So What Now?
Michigan law—unlike many other states—empowers employers by permitting employers and courts to enforce these agreements to the extent they protect as legitimate competitive interest. But a contract—like a law—is only as good as it is enforced.
I regularly help employers enforce their contracts and protect their competitive interests—both inside and outside of court.
You require your employees to sign non-compete, non-solicitation, and confidentiality contracts for good reason. Let me help you enforce them.
Fight a Non-Compete
So you signed a non-compete or non-solicitation agreement. Maybe you didn’t read the fine print when you signed. Maybe you didn’t have counsel review it and had no idea what you were signing. Or maybe just needed the job and quickly signed, hoping for the best.
Or, if you’re an employer, perhaps you’ve found the perfect strategic hire—but that potential hire has an absurd non-compete or non-solicitation agreement that complicates your hiring decision. Maybe you’ve even reached out to the current or former employer, who, for whatever reason, refuses to let you close on the hire.
Whatever the situation, the bottom line is that not all non-competes are created equal and many are downright unenforceable. In fact, employers must carefully draft non-competes or risk a court striking them down. Many employees don’t fully know this and assume that a court will enforce the non-compete.
You bet that the other side will pound the table and insist that every portion of the contract is enforceable in every context, across the board. Oftentimes that is not the case. For instance, it is incredibly important to assess not only who the new employer is (or will be), but also the employee’s specific role within the new organization.
Employees
We help employees move on with their careers by fighting unreasonable employment agreements, including non-competes and non-solicitation agreements.
Employers
We help employers close on strategic hires by defeating unreasonable restrictions that obstruct employers from employing certain employees.
Always Get the Best Outcome
Get the edge you need with a skilled assessment of your contract and expert advice on your options. Even if I cannot outright invalidate the agreement, other outcomes often include: