>On January 31, 2020, Boston partner Erik Weibust will be speaking at the Practicing Law Institute's program "Noncompetes and Restrictive Covenants 2020: What Every Lawyer, Human Resources Professional, and Key Strategic Decisionmaker Should Know" in San Francisco. Erik will be speaking a part of a roundtable discussion entitled "Advanced Issues in Noncompete Matters," which will cover common difficult problems and cutting-edge topics, including:
- Whether and how to best use early dispute resolution options.
- How to negotiate consent injunctions, including as they relate to restrictions on the scope of activities, duration of the noncompete, clients covered and/or excluded, and preliminary versus permanent injunctions.
- When mediation of covenant disputes should takes place, considerations for the selection of a mediator, and how mediation intersects with discovery.
- The intricacies of expedited discovery, including obtaining leave of court, the scope of discovery to be expedited, and electronic discovery and forensics.
- "Raiding" and team moves, including considerations involved in litigating multi-employee covenant matters collectively or separately and balancing between injunctive relief and damages.
- The impact of legislative activities and changing public opinion, including the challenge for multi-state employers of an increasing divergence of state laws, the uncertainties created by Massachusetts-style "noncompete with pay" laws, the impact of low-wage worker bans (with diverging definitions of "low"), and the likelihood and impact of potential federal legislation.
- Litigating cross-state issues, including legislative nullification of choice of law and venue clauses, "preemptive strike" declaratory judgment actions by employees, and enforcement strategies such as which forum to select for filing.
More information, including registration for the in-person program and live webcast, can be found here.