Protecting What You’ve Built – Start with the Employment Agreement

Legal Tip of the Week: Small business owners often focus on growth—but forget that protection is just as critical. A well-drafted employment agreement is your front line of defense against employee misconduct, intellectual property theft, and client poaching.

Without strong contractual protections in place, a single disgruntled or opportunistic employee can walk out the door with confidential information, proprietary business methods, trade secrets, customer lists, or even your workforce. Employment agreements should include clear confidentiality and non-disclosure provisions, assignment of inventions and work product, non-solicitation clauses to prevent former employees from targeting your staff or clients, and—when appropriate—non-compete clauses to limit unfair competition. For example, if a former software engineer uses your codebase to launch a competing app, or if a former sales manager reaches out to all your key accounts after leaving, you may find yourself in a vulnerable and expensive legal battle unless you’ve already established proper legal safeguards through customized agreements.

These issues are not just theoretical. We've seen firsthand how businesses lose key clients, revenue, and hard-earned goodwill simply because their employment contracts lacked critical protections—or worse, had outdated language pulled from a generic online template. Different industries demand different protections. A marketing firm might prioritize creative ownership clauses, while a tech startup should focus on IP assignment and data security. A fitness studio may need strong non-solicitation language to prevent instructors from taking loyal members to a new location. In each case, a generic agreement won’t cut it.

Let an experienced attorney help you put the right protections in place before problems arise.