12 Comments

Hi, lawyer here! Who tries her best not to lie. Be on the lookout also for non-disparagement clauses (where you are supposed to be blocked from saying anything bad about an employer). They're usually found in termination or "separation" agreements where you are an employee (often with non-compete clauses). They are usually non-enforceable (but check with a lawyer before ever signing such an "agreement").

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GREAT advice.

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This is hugely valuable advice. I have been able to extract many clients from these clauses based on this analysis. For those in California, you are reminded that California law does not favor covenants not to compete and will only enforce them if you are the owner/seller of a business, to prevent you from selling your business and then going into competition with it.

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There was a guy here in PA that got fired as a DJ from a popular radio station. After about 6 months he got picked up by a different station in the area, and the first station took him to court for violating his non-compete clause. I dunno what happened to him, he had a really popular morning show in the early 2000s. He was forced to leave that 2nd station, though. I think he might've had to move out of the broadcasting area to get another DJ job. 🤔

That was my first time really thinking about how these things are enforced.

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That's the way it is, if he was an employee and he found a job in the same area, yeah, they can enforce that clause.

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It's commonplace in the industry for DJs to have a non-compete clause in their employment contract for 6 months after leaving the job. And it only applies in a situation where the new employment would be "competing" with their previous employer (radio station vs radio station in same or close market). Non-competes for employees is generally enforceable. It's the context of freelancers who are not subject to non-compete. However, if they were working on some top-secret job, they might sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) that would have some specific parameters set rather than a catch-all non-compete.

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Yeah.. I think this guy must've had a particularly long non-compete term or something, because he waited 6 months and they still took him to court. His defense was he still needed to eat and pay rent.

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Interesting. Maybe he had a longer non-compete in his contract and just assumed the 6-month industry standard? Or maybe his ex-employer is just vindictive and a bully gambling he didn't have enough money to hire a lawyer to challenge it. :/

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Non-compete agreements hopefully will become a thing of the past. The FTC just issued a ruling, and hopefully it’ll withstand court challenges. The link is from the FTC’s page:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-announces-rule-banning-noncompetes

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It’s amazing that the legal profession allows actions like those described. You’d think there would be a code of ethics somewhere that disallowed things like this that could get them disbarred.

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Lawyers are not supposed to lie, but anyone who thinks they don't is living in a dream world.

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