b'Newhire:SarasSodaCompanyishiringanewsaleshis employeesdown to the copy boysign a non-competition representative for its Texas region. After interviewing severalagreement. As an employee leaves, he is quick to jump on them candidates, Sara decides on hiring Genie, who formerly workedwithalawsuitaftertheystartwithacompetitivecompany.for another regional bottler, knows the businesses in the area,Tommy has just one problem.He has worked so hard not to and can start making sales to new customers right away.Shortlyshare the secrets of his business with his employees, that he after Genie begins making calls, Sara is served with a lawsuithasinvalidatedthenon-compete.Foranon-competetobe from Genies former employer in which Genie has been sued forjustified and to prevent someone from working in a competitive violating a non-compete and Sara has been sued for tortiousbusiness, courts have to see that the person poses a risk to your interference with a contract. Sara is incensed. What has shebusiness. If you keep all the secrets there will be no justification.done wrong? Sara should ultimately be able to extricate herselfAnother situation where this particular example comes up is with from the lawsuit, if she can prove she didnt know about Geniesnew hires that are quickly let go or quit. Courts are reluctant non-compete. That said, Sara will incur legal fees to get out andto enforce the non-compete because the new hire didnt learn will probably have to fire Genie, thus incurring a loss for theanything or so little that the prohibition is not justified. time she has invested. Employers need to be careful to ask ifWhat Should I Do:prospective employees have a non-compete with their former employers to avoid these hassles. Good: Im not sure this qualifies as good, but you can try to draft your own non-compete agreement. Make sure to cover the New non-competeexisting employees: So youve now readlength of time, the geographic area, the type of secrets you are my non-compete piece, and you have decided to have a non- promising to provide, and the scope of the employees promise compete written for your employees. As part of creating a validnot to engage in competition.non-compete, you are supposed to provide the employee with secrets or training, but your existing employees already have allBetter: Use your attorney to draft a bare-bones non-compete of your customer lists and access to your other trade secrets. for the employees you feel are most risky to you and have the Will the non-competition agreement be enforceable?It depends. employeesexecutetheagreements.Becareful;employees Iftheemployeereceivesnewsecretsortraining,thenon- may quit instead of signing it.compete will become enforceable when the employees receive the information. I often advise employers to try to roll out a non- Best:Prepare a solid non-compete agreement with your attorney compete near the time they are providing some new training toand include: (1) a non-solicitation of customers provision; (2) try to reinforce that the non-compete will be enforceable. non-disclosure provision; (3) non-solicitation of employees away from the company after leaving; and (4) corporate opportunity No more secrets: Tommy Tactical runs a private investigativeprovision.firm. He was already suspicious of every employee that works for him and keeps everything about his business on a need -to-knowbasis. Afterreadingthesectionon TradeSecrets and Confidentiality, Tommy has withdrawn even more, keeping every possible piece of information about his company locked upliketheformulatoacertainsoftdrink.Seekingeven additional protection after reading this section, Tommy has all of 18'