Our colleagues Peter A. Steinmeyer, Erik W. Weibust, and Angel A. Perez, attorneys at Epstein Becker Inexperienced, co-authored a 2022 Thomson Reuters Sensible Regulation Apply Observe titled “Moral Points for Attorneys Associated to Restrictive Covenants.”
Following is an excerpt (see beneath to obtain the complete model in PDF format):
Corporations throughout the US generally use non-compete agreements and different restrictive covenants to guard the corporate’s official enterprise pursuits. These agreements are used with staff in any respect ranges however usually concentrate on these with entry to the corporate’s commerce secrets and techniques and confidential data. In-house attorneys, particularly, might tackle non-legal, enterprise roles that expose them to delicate data that the corporate seeks to guard from rivals and public disclosure.
As attorneys change companies or transfer in-house throughout their careers, they might be requested to signal non-competition, non-solicitation, and confidentiality agreements. Earlier than getting into into these agreements, attorneys ought to contemplate whether or not the agreements are permitted beneath their state’s skilled ethics guidelines. This Observe discusses a few of the key moral points for attorneys to contemplate within the context of restrictive covenants.
Whereas there is no such thing as a set of nationwide ethics requirements, all states (besides California) and the District of Columbia base their ethics guidelines on the American Bar Affiliation’s (ABA) Mannequin Guidelines of Skilled Conduct (ABA Mannequin Guidelines). This Observe refers to each:
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- The ABA Mannequin Guidelines as a result of they mirror the essential framework for the requirements {of professional} conduct utilized throughout the nation.
- State guidelines {of professional} conduct (RPC), that are typically numbered to correspond to their ABA Mannequin Rule corollaries. Many states have modified the ABA Mannequin Guidelines, so attorneys ought to refer and cling to their native ethics guidelines when contemplating whether or not particular agreements might set off an ethics violation.
Learn the complete article, “Moral Points for Attorneys Associated to Restrictive Covenants,” in PDF format.