Employment Contract Clause: 'Competitor ban'

[Tonberry]

Hi All

The OH has offered a position with a law firm as admin. Within the contract is states that she cannot take up employment with another firm who offers legal advice for a seven month period after termination of employment.

Is this legally enforceable? She won't be stealing clients as she is admin, not a solicitor so I don't see the issue.

I've heard of not being able to take up employment with direct competitors but this is Law for crying out loud. It means she can't even work for the CAB again.

Thoughts?

[StevieBee]

The restraint of trade clause that you refer to is, I believe, unenforceable as you cannot prevent anyone from working.

However, I would suspect that this may be a bit different for a law firm as it's possible that your OH could take knowledge with her about a case her old firm is acting for the plaintiff on and the new one, for the defendant.

Best advice, don't get the boot!

[oldbanger]

To my knowledge it's not that common in law. In fact solicitors working for the big firms seem to move back and forth at whim as far as I can tell.

Edited by oldbanger on Wednesday 10th October 22:52

[GuinnessMK]

I had a similar clause in one of my old contracts.

The advice I got from a lawyer was it either needs to be geographically limited or customer limited.

So "can't work in this industry for 6 months" isn't enforcable (unless they want to pay you), but

"can't work within 5 miles for 6 months" might be, and so might

"can't contact any of our existing customers for 6 months".

[anonymous-user]

A clause restraining someone from working for competitors can sometimes be enforceable. It depends on business context and the words used. OP, please quote the clause in full. I can then offer a view. I do this for a living (I'm in court on a restrictive covenant case tomorrow).

On the face of it, the clause mentioned by the OP sounds too wide to be enforceable, but let's see the actual wording.