Legal Risks of Hiring Competitors' Employees

Know your rights when hiring competitors' employees and avoid legal pitfalls.

With a post-pandemic mobile workforce and an increasingly tight labor market, many employers are faced with the challenges and risks associated with hiring a competitor's employee, particularly with respect to candidates who pose a high competitive threat and/or had access to confidential information. Compounding these challenges are recent legislative developments limiting the use of restrictive covenants in numerous states, in addition to the FTC's proposed rulemaking banning non-compete agreements altogether. In this session, you will learn how restrictive covenants and non-disclosure agreements may impact hiring decisions, including possible challenges to their enforceability, best practices during the hiring process, the offer stage, and the commencement of employment to insulate the company from liability to the maximum extent possible. Should litigation erupt after hiring a competitor's employee, you will learn about the most prevalent claims against former employees and their new employers, the most common and most effective defenses to those claims, and the possible counterclaims that may turn the tide of litigation in an employer's favor. This topic will help you understand the legal and practical risks associated with hiring a competitor's employee, minimize those risks, utilize knowledge gained to effectively resolve issues short of litigation, and zealously defend any litigation that may ensue despite the employer's best efforts.

Faculty

Stephen E. Baumann, II

Holland & Knight LLP

Danielle Van Katwyk

Littler Mendelson P.C.