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 under to obtain the complete model in PDF format):
Firms 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 typically deal with these with entry to the corporate’s commerce secrets and techniques and confidential info. In-house attorneys, specifically, could tackle non-legal, enterprise roles that expose them to delicate info that the corporate seeks to guard from opponents and public disclosure.
As attorneys swap companies or transfer in-house throughout their careers, they could be requested to signal non-competition, non-solicitation, and confidentiality agreements. Earlier than getting into into these agreements, attorneys ought to take into account 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 replicate the fundamental 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 could set off an ethics violation.
Learn the complete article, “Moral Points for Attorneys Associated to Restrictive Covenants,” in PDF format.