non compete agreement

I see no use in this form, it is not enforceable and I have seen many people that have been screwed by former employee's who had a "No Compete" in place. Seems like it's a feel good piece of paper with no validity.
 
You got that right Nick. I spoke with a lawyer friend about that recently and the ONLY way it might work was if the employee had no experience at all and you provided all the training. Even then it would prove to be more trouble than it was worth to try to enforce.
 
They need to be more of a Non Solicitation agreement. Non competes are just not upheld in most states, and with the economy the way it is, no one will probably enforce it.
 
Non-competes have been enforced many times and thrown out probably more often. They have to have reasonable time periods and geographic restrictions. A non-disclosure agreement is also something that is used to protect "trade secrets". The latter has been abused over the years to the point it is tough to enforce. The average lawyer won't be able to draft a binding non-compete. It takes a lawyer familiar with specific case law and then it's still up to a judge or jury. Each state varies on what they will recognize as "reasonable".

Most agreements are just used to intimidate a person into believing it's enforceable. Kind of like the sign on the back of a dump truck that says "Not responsible for broken windshields" or a "Beware of Dog" sign.

That being said I have a friend in NC that was sued for a non-compete signed 25 years prior and at a location 500 miles away. He was sued by his former employer. He fought it for 2 years and paid I think $15K to defend it. He won but he was still out the $15K. 95% of the public would have rolled over and stopped business.

My advice is get one and get it signed. You can decide to enforce later.

We have a system designed by lawyers for lawyers.
 
Absolute1 said:
You got that right Nick. I spoke with a lawyer friend about that recently and the ONLY way it might work was if the employee had no experience at all and you provided all the training. Even then it would prove to be more trouble than it was worth to try to enforce.
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Remember guys lawyers are like any other profession you have a bell curve, a few that are awesome, a few that are failures and a whole bunch that are average. Lawyers can be wrong too. 50% that go to trial are. Someone has to loose.

We have a non compete agreement in place that has a 2 year non competition clause and a 5 year confidentiality clause. We have defended it and won all three times. One judge even told one of our ex employees that kept violating it and other court orders regarding it that the next time he saw him on this he would send him to jail.

One of my sales persons staged a cou and left with a couple of other employees. They started a competitive company and though I had a non-compete on the new owner, I got all Christian with them and just turned the other cheek. They built up to $1,000,000.00 company and stole half of my biggest client away from us at the tune of about $500k.

Looking back I should have buried them. Oh well lesson learned. We use it on everyone now and enforce it EVERY time.

AC
 
greg/sd said:
AC that wasn't roofx was it. they used to tell people they where old employees of yours. I lost some big bids to that company and also PM's to them.
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One of them was Roofex. Shawn Profit waited out his non-compete with 2 weeks to go then started Roofex. He hired some of our employees away and we sued him for doing that. An employeer can be held liable for hiring an employee with a non-compete as well. We made them spend almost 100k and two years of their focus and finally their non-competes were up.

Anyhow we learned from Roofex that sometimes it is better just to let a company die on their own. If they had issues when they worked for you those issues aren't miraculously going to solve them selves when they start their own company.

Y'all know this is a hard business and growing beyond owner operator is hard to accomplish.

No the one that got the words from the judge was Will Fisher. The other company was Clean Spray.

AC
 
If you want a non compete, get a lawyer that specializes in them to write it up, or to tell you if they are worthwhile. I have a friend that only deals in non competes, and claims to have never lost a case for a non compete. He also told me that in Arizona, it would not be worth it for me to have one.
 
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