Trade Secrets & Employee Mobility

Thomson Reuters Practical Law has released the 2024 update to “Garden Leave Provisions in Employment Agreements,” co-authored by Peter A. Steinmeyer and Lauri F. Rasnick, Members of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s Chicago and New York offices, respectively.

The Note discusses garden leave provisions in employment agreements as an alternative or a companion to traditional employee non-compete agreements. It addresses the differences between garden leave and non-compete provisions, the benefits and drawbacks ...

Thomson Reuters Practical Law has released the 2023 update to “Garden Leave Provisions in Employment Agreements,” co-authored by our colleagues Peter A. Steinmeyer and Lauri F. Rasnick.

The Note discusses garden leave provisions in employment agreements as an alternative or a companion to traditional employee non-compete agreements. It addresses the differences between garden leave and non-compete provisions, the benefits and drawbacks of garden leave, and drafting considerations for employers that want to use garden leave provisions. This Note applies to private employers and is jurisdiction neutral.

The 2019 legal landscape of employee mobility continues to evolve, at times drastically. Courts and legislatures are giving increased scrutiny to employers’ claims to protect the confidentiality of their trade secrets and attempts to enforce their employees’ restrictive covenants, including non-competition and non-solicitation agreements. It can be hard for employers to prevent their confidential information and client goodwill from following certain departing employees.

With greater knowledge of the latest legal theories, decisions, statutes, and other ...

On April 13, 2015 we blogged about the decision of the Ninth Circuit in Golden v. California Emergency Physicians Medical Group, 782 F.3d 1083 (9^th Cir. 2015). There, the Ninth Circuit considered whether, under California law, an employee could be ordered to sign a settlement agreement that included language that restricted him, inter alia, from future employment with his former employer.

Dr. Golden is an emergency-room doctor who sued California Emergency Physicians Medical Group (“CEP”), among others, regarding his loss of staff membership at a medical facility.  His ...

In a very thorough analysis following a 3 day Preliminary Injunction hearing Judge Jed Rakoff declined to issue injunctive relief to a former employer seeking to enjoin four former employees and their new employer from competing or from soliciting clients or employees. The decision is far ranging in the employee movement context touching upon inadvertent retention of confidential information, the propriety of new employers providing broad indemnifications and large signing bonuses to the recruits,  and the scope of allowable “preparatory conduct” in a one year non-compete ...

[caption id="attachment_2116" align="alignright" width="113"] James P. Flynn[/caption]

The State of Utah recently enacted Utah Code Annotated 34-51-101 et seq., the so-called Post-Employment Restrictions Amendments, which limit restrictive covenants entered into on or after May 10, 2016 to a one-year time period from termination. Although this could curtail certain employers’ plans, the amendments enacted provide some important exceptions and are in fact much more favorable to employers than those first proposed, which would have precluded virtually all ...