Bob Axtell wrote:
> These agreements have little weight in some states, which have realized 
> that such agreements are too
> onerous. Example: in Georgia, USA, such agreements can be signed all day 
> long, but in fact are null and void
> after 3 years. This applies to NDA's and other documents as well. Other 
> states are adopting this as well.
> Ask a good lawyer about the laws concerning employer-employee 
> relations.... if you can find one. Its
> not as bad as you might think. Even in less astute states, very few of 
> these things are actually enforced.

In particular (IANAL) as I understand it courts are unlikely to uphold 
agreements that have the effect of preventing an employee from doing 
future work in a field that requires substantial or specialized 
training.  For example, a requirement that an employee assign all future 
patents, for the rest of his life, to the original employer effectively 
prevents him from doing any future work that involves creating 
patentable inventions, since his future employers wouldn't be entitled 
to the patent rights.  Therefore it would be unlikely to be upheld.  A 
requirement, OTOH, that the employee not work for one of a small named 
list of competitors for a limited time after leaving employment would be 
very likely to be upheld, except in cases where those competitors were 
the only companies who would be at all likely to hire anyone with the 
employee's specific training.  At the extreme, an agreement forbidding 
the employee from doing any paid work at all after leaving the employer 
(or requiring him to turn over any future salary to the original 
employer) would be obviously unenforceable.

I seem to remember some decisions that said that non-contractual 
employment agreements aren't enforceable if their primary purpose is to 
limit the employee's future job mobility (i.e. make it difficult for him 
to quit his present position) rather than to prevent competitors from 
taking unfair advantage of proprietary knowledge gained during current 
employment.  If a company really wants to prevent employees from 
quitting, it's always free to offer them employment contracts and the 
restrictions it takes on as a result (such as not being able to fire the 
employee just to get someone cheaper) are the price it has to pay in 
return for the benefit.
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