Employment Contracts & Non-Compete Agreements
Pennsylvania and New Jersey Employment Contract Attorney
Employers can, and with greater frequency do, require prospective employees to sign employment contracts and non-compete agreement upon acceptance of a job offer. In the past, these kinds of contracts were only required of top executives and elite sales representatives, but now we see product managers, accountants, even line supervisors and accounts receivables clerks being compelled to sign a contract with restrictive covenants.
Of all those pieces of paper you must sign when you begin a new job, this one may be the most important for your future. It’s a good idea to have an attorney review your contract before you sign it to ensure you fully understand the implications of the contract and are not signing away rights that will limit your employability later.
Contact a New Jersey employment contract attorney at the New Jersey Law Firm of Ronald A. Graziano, P.C. We may be able to help you negotiate a reasonable employment contract that protects your interests and improves your financial standing.
Our employment contract attorneys have considerable knowledge in this area. Firm founder Ron Graziano is a frequent legal education educator on the topic of employment contracts.
Facing a Lawsuit?
The purpose of a non-compete agreement is to protect the interests of your employer when you leave. If you gained important knowledge about the business, if you had access to trade secrets or a customer list, you have gained valuable business information that can cripple your company in a competitive marketplace. It’s only natural that your company should want to protect its investment.
But many companies go overboard and write non-compete agreements that are too broad.
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If you are selling a product in New Jersey and they seek to prevent you from selling throughout the Northeast, the geography of the contract is too wide.
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If you worked in a design position for a product line and your employer says you cannot work in that field for five years after you leave, the duration of the contract is too long.
Your employer can use a non-compete agreement to protect their interests, but they can’t block competition and they can’t prevent you from earning a livelihood.
If your employer has sued you for breach of contract after you joined a new company, the New Jersey employment contract attorneys at the Law Firm of Ronald A. Graziano are available to provide legal representation to protect your interests and employability.
Representative Case
- Our client, a sales representative, was sued by his former employer who claimed that he had stolen their customer list. We were able to demonstrate that the customer list in question was non-proprietary information that could be gained from the yellow pages.
If you suspect that your employer or former employer is likely to sue you for breach of employment contract or breach of a non-compete agreement, our attorneys have been able to negotiate with the new employer during the initial employment phase for legal representation to defend the contract dispute in court.
