Trade Secrets, Unfair Competition, and Non-Competes

Our lawyers work with clients to protect the business assets that provide the most crucial competitive advantage—an organization’s trade secrets and proprietary information. Vigilant maintenance of trade secrets is vital due to the fact that corporate information becomes more vulnerable to theft every day.

Our team of lawyers provide legal solutions that can be customized for all 50 states and are designed to avoid litigation, heavy financial investments or costly government filings. Trade secret, unfair competition, and non-compete protections include a variety of legal services to protect confidential information, trade secrets, and intellectual property from actions by former employees or others who wish to gain an unfair competitive advantage.

Identifying and Managing Trade Secrets

We work with clients to develop systems and protocols to protect trade secrets and to minimize the risk of unfair competition. In many cases, there are fast and inexpensive solutions.

• Implement a trade secrets audit
• Establish and verify trade secret protection strategies
• Segregate and organize trade secrets
• Establish a trade secrets policy
• Restrict physical and electronic access to trade secrets

Our trade secrets team has extensive experience with the nuances of employment laws across jurisdictions. Where trade secrets and employees intersect, our lawyers have the know-how to build the appropriate safeguards to protect trade secrets and mitigate risk. We work with computer forensic experts to identify internal or external data theft, and advise clients on how to best control damage from renegade former employees or unethical competitors.

We design strong processes and employee agreements to serve as contractual barriers against potential damage.

• Onboarding and litigation-avoidance counseling
• Drafting precautionary employment policies, employment handbooks, non-disclosure, and non-compete agreements
• Best practices training for hiring, terminating, and managing employees to protect confidential and intellectual property
• Leading experienced internal investigations
• Conducting exit and other employee interviews
• Customized employment agreements for all 50 states

Trade Secrets Litigation

Despite the best precautions, at times litigation is inevitable. Our lawyers prosecute and defend all types of disputes concerning trade secrets, unfair competition, and enforcement of non-competition and confidentiality agreements. We have achieved favorable outcomes on behalf of businesses needing to respond to or initiate emergency proceedings and interim relief, and have successfully represented clients at trial and in appellate courts across the country.

Our team has experience litigating cases in jurisdictions and forums throughout the United States, ranging from the trade secret status of an iPhone app to theft of customer lists to proceedings before the International Trade Commission, as well as the following areas:

• E-Discovery
• Injunctions, declaratory judgments, and other litigation
• Misappropriation of trade secrets
• Unfair competition
• White-collar criminal defense
• Corporate investigations
• Computer fraud and business act claims