Kathleen Cahill Law
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Baltimore
Kathleen Cahill Law
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Employers in certain industries require employees and independent contractors to sign non-solicitation agreements. These employment contracts can be enforceable to protect legitimate business interests, but they also can operate to render off-limits your critical professional network.
While companies do have the right to protect their trade secrets and the customer or client relationships they have built over time, they tend to propose to agreements that are more expansive than needed to accomplish those purposes. As a Baltimore non-solicitation agreement lawyer practicing throughout Maryland, I can advise you up front about the implications of a proposed non-solicitation agreement and, if needed, help you negotiate changes to make it fair.
When working for a company, you gain critical information about its customers and suppliers, and internal procedures and systems. Depending on your role, your central duties could entail developing strong relationships with your employer’s customers. But legally speaking, the customer relationships belong to the employer, not to you.
A non-solicitation agreement demands that you refrain from using those customer relationships for your own benefit or the benefit of your next employer. Similarly, a non-solicitation agreement demands that you refrain from using the employer’s confidential information to contact customers for your own purposes or those of your future employers. A non-solicitationagreement might also bar you from poaching your former co-workers or from banding together to compete more potently against your former employer.
While a company might be motivated by legitimate business interests, and act to prevent you from interfering in its business relationships, sometimes they craft no-poaching provisions so broadly that they effectively prevent you from working in the same sector for an extended period after you leave their employ. As an experienced, dedicated Baltimore attorney, I can help you analyze a proposed non-solicitation agreement to ensure it does not unduly restrict your future prosperity and success.
Maryland has made some non-compete agreements unenforceable when they apply to certain lower-wage workers or professionals in specific industries. In contrast, non-solicitation agreements are enforceable if they are reasonable in scope and duration.
Determining the reasonableness of the proposed terms of an agreement requires a fact-specific analysis of your specific situation. We know that a judge will scrutinize the contract language and consider whether it is narrowly tailored to protect legitimate business interests, and whether it is so broad that it is stifling fair competition or harming your ability to make a living.
Although Maryland has barred non-compete agreements for some healthcare and veterinary professionals and limited them for high-earning medical professionals, there are no similar restrictions on non-solicitation agreements. That means healthcare providers can still turn to non-solicitation clauses to protect their relationships with patients and referral sources. With substantial experience representing healthcare and veterinary professionals as a Baltimore lawyer, I can ensure any such non-solicitation provision includes the protections you need and are entitled to.
But patients’ rights are significant in the analysis too. For example, although the employer, not the employee healthcare provider, owns the patient records, the employer must respond promptly to a patient’s request for their own medical records in the event they choose to follow their departing provider. The departing physician has ethical obligations regarding continuity of care, meaning they may have a responsibility to notify their patients of their departure.
Although non-solicitation clauses might be unavoidable in certain industries, they can be fairly drafted to impose only reasonable restrictions on your future use of information and access to business relationships. If you have been asked to sign a non-solicitation agreement, call me. I can help give you a clear assessment of what the agreement means and what can be done to ensure it does not pose undue risk or prevent you from earning a good living. As a Baltimore non-solicitation agreement lawyer, I look forward to working with you.
Kathleen Cahill Law
N/a