Business Law for Employees

Employees are encouraged to treat their careers like a business.  No business would enter into a contract that will regulate what it can do and what it will get paid without having a lawyer draft or negotiate it.  Your employer has a lawyer, and you should too.

Executives, managers, salespeople, and professionals confront a wide variety of different contracts that can govern every aspect of the employment relation, and even, with non-competition agreements, what someone can do after they leave a job.  

An experienced Connecticut employment contract lawyer can make a difference at each stage of the process.  

• A lawyer who has negotiated many of the same type of contract will know what provisions may defeat your expections, and what language is commonly accepted to reduce any risk to your career from such provisions;  
• If an employment issue arises during or after employment, an experienced lawyer can interpret the contract and advise you about what your opportunities and risks are and map out a strategy to reach your career goals in light of these risk and opportunities.  
• If you have to bring suit to enforce your rights, or your employer or former employer sues you, you need an experienced Connecticut employment contract litigator to litigate your claims or to defend you.

David has been negotiating, interpreting, and litigating Connecticut employment contracts for more than 30 years.  With aggressive and empathetic representation, he can help you move towards your career goals.  

Covenants not to compete or non-competition agreements are used by employers to restrict the employment and business opportunities of former employees, usually preventing a former employee from working for a competitor or restrict the former employee’s ability to sell to the former employer’s customers, also called “non-solicitation clause.”  Many people believe that non-competition agreements aren’t enforceable, and so think it doesn’t mean anything to sign a non-compete.  Non-competes are enforceable in Connecticut if the covenant is reasonable in temporal scope (that the covenant doesn’t last too long) and is reasonable in geographical scope (that the geographical area covered by the non-compete is limited to the area in which the former employer does business).  Connecticut law of non-competes is fact specific: a case might find that a worldwide non-compete is enforceable for a company that sells its products all over the world, while finding that a non-compete for a hairdresser that covers New London County is unreasonable.  

An experienced Connecticut non-compete lawyer help you develop a strategy to reduce the harm to your career resulting from a non-compete:

• If you haven’t signed the agreement yet, an experienced non-compete lawyer can develop a proposed covenant that protects your employer’s legitimate business interest while leaving the employee scope to make a living after leaving the employer;
• If you have already signed a non-compete, a Connecticut lawyer experienced with covenants not to compete can advise you regarding whether the covenant is likely to be enforced, and whether a prospective job or business opportunity is likely to violate the non-compete;
• If you have been sued or threated with suit for violating a non-compete, an experienced lawyer can vigorously contest the suit, while always seeking a resolution that will resolve the suit and allow you to resume your career free of interference from your former employer.  

An experienced lawyer is necessary to navigate the complex intersection of Connecticut’s law of non-competes and how individuals and companies act in the business world in response to non- competes.  David Rintoul has more than thirty-five years of experience in negotiating, interpreting, and litigating non-competes, and so has the knowledge and experience to help clients to overcome the effects of a non-compete and move forward to achieve their career goals.

Individuals often go into business together without explicitly working out who get paid what when once the business is successful.  When the partners are building the business, they are working hard to make the business succeed and there is not much money to distribute for the partners to fight about, so the issue isn’t addressed.  But then when the company starts succeeding and there is money to distribute to the owners, the fights break out, as each partner may think the company is succeeding because of his or her own efforts and that they deserve the greater share of distribution.  Just when the company is succeeding, fighting among the owners ends of destroying it.  Or, after several years, one partner wants out and the others wish to keep it going.  If this situation hasn’t been addressed in an agreement among the partners, it can again result in the destruction of a viable company.

By coming to an agreement at the beginning of the business about distributions, buyouts of partners, and the many other questions that can destroy a company if left unresolved, a company is much more likely to survive the many disputes that can arise among owners of a business.  Connecticut business law offers many avenues to an experienced Connecticut LLC lawyer or corporate lawyer like David Rintoul to foster the long-term viability of a new or existing business venture.