Date and Time: Tuesday, June 14, 2022 from 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. ET
Webinar Fee: $50

This Program is Online Only.

Faculty

Thomas J. Carey, Esq., Boston College Law School, Hogan Lovells LLP

Karen Breda, Esq., Boston College Law School

Jerry Cohen, Esq., Burns & Levinson LLP , and JAMS, Inc., Roger Williams Law School, co-authors of Massachusetts Law Review article: “Employee Noncompetition Laws and Practices: A Massachusetts Paradigm Shift Goes National” (April 2022)

Description

The Massachusetts Noncompetition Agreement Act of 2018 (MNAA), effective prospectively, and now increasingly applicable, creates a dramatic shift in employer controls of employees’ mobility but preserves common law roots. It presents new challenges for counselors to employers and employees and has been a guide for reform in many other states. It was passed concurrently with Massachusetts’s adoption of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), bans noncompetition agreements for large classes of employees and creates protective of employee rules for remaining classes, and ends abusive practices but gives employers useful safe harbor standards. The Act is at the forefront of a nationwide reform movement and shows continuing vitality to the Brandeis expression of states as laboratories of democracy. There are also pending movements for federal intervention and a new proposed uniform restrictive agreements act for all states. The faculty panel will show the changed ground rules, compliance measures, remaining questions and measures within MNAA, UTSA and various IP systems for adequate protection of trade secrets, confidential information and goodwill.

Outline

Background: English and colonial roots of non-competes heavily balanced for employee mobility and courts’ and legislative evolution to greater rights for company employers while carving out exceptions and limits sandwiched between Middle Ages bubonic plague and modern COVID.

1. Ten years of Massachusetts legislative gestation of MNAA
2. Requirements of MNAA, UTSA and pending federal and uniform state act proposals
3. Best practices of lawyers for employers and employees in counseling, drafting and dispute resolution
4. Supplemental forms of protecting trade secrets, confidential information and goodwill without unduly restricting options of mobile professional and executive employees (both W-2 employees and 1099 deemed employees under the Massachusetts Independent Contractor Act)
5. “Garden leave” payments for noncompetition and adequate alternatives
6. Judges’ options to assess compliance and flexibly fashion remedies; ADR alternatives; monitoring
7. Choice of law and venue; TRO/PI; spoliation, discovery, protective orders
8. Nation-wide federal and states’ approaches and prospects (statutory damages? Federal or state agency enforcement If any? 93A? FTC Act section 5, 15 U.S.C. 45?)
9. A win-win for employees and employers and for lawyers and judges

Online registration is encouraged. For assistance, questions on group discounts, accommodations requests, special billing, program content, out-of-state CLE credits, and general CLE information contact Michael Saporito by email at msaporito@socialaw.com. Registrations accepted in order of receipt. Registration fees are non-refundable. Most Social Law Library CLE events are recorded. The recording is available by digital download, generally within a week after the program date. Most downloads include print material and are $19.95 each. This product purchase is separate from CLE registration and is not included in the price of a CLE registration. CLE credit, when applicable, is only granted when the live webinar is attended.