For the last several years, non-compete agreements have been under attack in the U.S. by regulators, legislators, and even the courts. For example, in October 2018, Massachusetts joined states like California, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and others by enacting a law regulating non-compete agreements, including providing for “garden leave” and making them inapplicable to “non-exempt” employees. Courts do not favor non-competes and will often look for any reason to limit them or invalidate them completely. But, love them or hate them, non-compete agreements are here to stay, and businesses continue to rely on them as one way to protect customer goodwill along with confidential and proprietary information. See, for example, the recent battle between Google’s Waymo unit and Uber over Anthony Levandowski and the theft of self-driving car technology and know-how. Still, it’s clear that the forces fighting against non-competes are stronger than ever. For example, there is legislation pending in Vermont to ban all non-compete agreements, and at the federal level to ban them for low-wage workers. Which is why it’s important for in-house counsel to take every step possible to ensure the non-compete agreements used by their companies have the best chance of surviving regulatory and judicial scrutiny. This edition of “Ten Things” discusses some tips on how to draft an enforceable non-compete agreement:
drafting
Ten Things: Time For a Conversation About Drafting Documents and Emails
As in-house counsel, you already know that poorly drafted documents, especially emails, can hurt your company, e.g., M&A deals can get derailed or litigation extended. You can find examples every day of “bad” emails being read in court. Labels like “confidential,” “company private,” “restricted,” and “proprietary” will not protect documents from being obtained through proper legal process.
Document requests in litigation or government investigations are broad, typically calling for correspondence, hand-written notes, agreements, drafts, email (email back-up tapes), sent files, deleted emails, calendars, spreadsheets, documents on tablets and smartphones, graphs, expense reports, voice mail, meeting agenda, calendar entries, copies of media articles, etc. Consequently, it’s important that your business colleagues understand the importance of properly prepared documents and emails (and the potential harm from not doing so).
Below are ten things you can use in your daily dealings and conversations with the business to help limit problems that can arise from poorly prepared documents. I have included some links to other resources as well. A lot is focused on emails, but the rules apply to pretty much any written communication (including instant messages and recorded voicemails). Feel free to cut and paste these into your own check-list or email (or however you best can get the word out at your company).
Ten Things You Need to Know as In-House Counsel® 