Here at the Law Office of Vincent Miletti, Esq. and the home of the #UnusuallyMotivated movement, we take pride as a resilient and dependable legal services firm, providing such services in both a traditional and online, web-based environment. With mastered specialization in areas such as Employment and Labor Law, Intellectual Property (IP) (trademark, copyright, patent), Entertainment Law, and e-Commerce (Supply Chain, Distribution, Fulfillment, Standard Legal & Regulatory), we provide a range of legal services including, but not limited to traditional legal representation (litigation, mediation, arbitration, opinion letters and advisory), non-litigated business legal representation and legal counsel, and unique, online legal services such as smart forms, mobile training, legal marketing and development.

Still, here at Miletti Law®, we feel obligated to enlighten, educate, and create awareness, free of charge, about how these issues and many others affect our unusually motivated® readers and/or their businesses. Accordingly, to achieve this goal, we have committed ourselves to creating authoritative, trustworthy, & distinctive content. Usually, this content is featured as videos posted on our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvUryqkkMAJLwrLu2BBt6w and blogs that are published on our website WWW.MILETTILAW.COM. With that, the ball is in your court and you have an effortless obligation to subscribe to the channel and sign up for the Newsletter on the website, which encompasses the best way to ensure that you stay in the loop and feel the positive impact of the knowledge bombs that we drop here!

As the authoritative force in Employment Law, it only seemed right to introduce one of the many upcoming series in which we introduce a variety of topics that looks to educate and deliver in a manner that only Miletti Law® can. To that end, this blog is Part III of a new and short series on “Key Legal and Drafting Issues for Non-solicitation Covenants/Agreements.” In Part II, we hammered on “Considering Including Time, Geographic, or Other Restrictions” as one of the key considerations when drafting employee non-solicitation agreements. Regarding this consideration, we asserted that employers, particularly those with a large count of employees and in many locations, might want or need to incorporate a restriction aimed at limiting individuals covered under the non-solicitation agreement. We also added that by doing this, a court would be prevented from deeming such a restriction to be overly broad or too restrictive. Remember, we said that, unlike non-disclosure agreements, many courts in multiple jurisdictions are more likely to consider non-solicitation agreements valid since the non-solicitation agreements do not hinder a former employee’s competing ability.

As a continuation of this discussion, we have hammered, in this short blog and Part III of our series, “Considering Limiting the Restraint on Employee Solicitation to a Reasonable Time Period,” another key consideration that every employer must factor in when drafting valid employee non-solicitation agreements that would be enforceable under the law.

Considering Limiting the Restraint on Employee Solicitation to a Reasonable Time Period

For the purposes of compliance with local, state, and federal guidelines regarding non-solicitation agreements, employers should take proactive steps to review and understand all applicable laws within their jurisdictions. This is because some jurisdictions have been known to consider non-solicitation agreements on par with non-competition covenants. When such is the case in one’s jurisdiction, an employer should, as a best practice, consider limiting the duration and period a non-solicitation agreement should remain active.

In our blog accessible at https://milettilaw.com/blog/f/restrictive-covenants-made-easy, we mentioned that, as one of the key ingredients, a restrictive covenant, such as a non-solicitation agreement, should be reasonable in time. Regarding this ingredient, we mentioned that it is illogical to have a restriction without a time limit. Generally, any restrictive covenant made to last up to one year is presumably reasonable. However, we also asserted that the further out the restriction goes from 1 year and beyond, the more it becomes unreasonable. Accordingly, this goes without saying that an employee non-solicitation agreement with an unlimited time frame may be deemed unreasonable.

Ideally, a non-solicitation agreement stating, “the restrictions of this paragraph last for a period of twelve months following the termination of the Employee’s employment with Company” may be deemed reasonable in a court of law. However, it is important for employers and employees to understand that the limit on the time of an employee non-solicitation agreement should depend on a valid business justification, including the time needed to recruit additional qualified individuals or the training time required for new employees.

In Part IV of this series, we will move the discussion forward by hammering on “Avoiding Ambiguous or Overreaching Employee Non-solicitation Agreements” as another critical consideration that every employer must factor in when drafting valid employee non-solicitation agreements that would be enforceable under the law.

In the meantime, stay tuned for more legal guidance, training, and education. In the interim, if there are any questions or comments, please let us know at the Contact Us page!

Always rising above the bar,

Isaac T.,

Legal Writer & Author.