Keep Up with Current Employment Law Issues
A question that is or should be important to employers and employees alike is whether non-compete provisions in an employment agreement can be enforced in New York when the employee is terminated involuntarily without cause. As is well known, the law regarding restrictive covenant provisions such as non-competes is a matter of state law. Although disfavored in the typical employment context under New York law on the grounds that they interfere with a person’s right to earn a living, non-compete provisions are enforced if the terms are:
- no greater than required to protect an employer’s legitimate protectable interests and
- reasonable in temporal and geographic scope.
See Johnson Controls, Inc. v. A.P.T. Critical Sys. Inc., 323 F.Supp. 2d 525,533 (S.D.N.Y. 2004).
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In New York, a promise of good faith and fair dealing is implicit in every contract. 511 W. 232nd CORP v. Jennifer Realty Co., 98 N.Y.2d 144, 153 (2002); Smith v. General Acc. Inc. Co., 91 N.Y.2d 648, 652-653 (1998); Dalton v. Educational Testing Serv., 87 N.Y.2d 384, 389 (1995) A contract is breached when a party acts in a manner that deprives the other party of the right to receive the benefits to which it is entitled under the agreement even if such action is not expressly forbidden by any contractual provision. The implied covenant protects the reasonable expectations of each party arising out of the written agreement it entered into. Jennifer Realty Co., 98 N.Y.2d 144, 153; accord M/A-COM Sec. Corp. v. Galesi, 904 F.2d 134, 136 (2d Cir. 1990).
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As is widely recognized, the attorney-client privilege is one of the most important fundamental principles in the legal profession. Every attorney has an obligation to protect his or her clients’ information and to keep attorney-client communications confidential. Of course, this principle applies to in-house counsel as well as outside counsel. Accordingly, it is crucial for both corporate legal departments and law firms to adopt and implement safeguards in order to protect client information. Although all lawyers presumably know that they have a duty to protect privileged client communications and information, many do not know how to do so. This article will briefly introduce the complex related topics of data privacy and security and provide some helpful initial steps that in-house and outside counsel should take in developing a plan to safeguard client information.
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