Two confident myths circulate about restrictive covenants: “they’re never enforceable here” and “you signed it, you’re bound.” Both wrong — and the truth decides real cases weekly.
The Doctrine, Plainly
Restraint-of-trade doctrine starts from suspicion: covenants restraining a person’s ability to earn are void unless reasonable — meaning they protect a legitimate business interest (customer connections, confidential information, workforce stability — never mere freedom from competition) and go no further than necessary in duration, geography and scope. The consequences follow mechanically: the twelve-month, nationwide, all-activities non-compete on a mid-level employee tends to die when tested; the six-month non-solicitation of clients the employee actually dealt with tends to live. Non-solicitation and non-dealing clauses generally fare better than blanket non-competes — they restrain less, so they need less justification.
What This Means in Practice
For employers: draft narrow and tailored, role by role — the intimidating boilerplate that HR loves is precisely what fails in court, and a failed covenant protects nothing; remember too that confidence and springboard protect you independently of any covenant. For employees: don’t assume the clause binds because it frightens — and don’t assume it’s void because a friend said so: the analysis is specific to your clause, your role and your conduct, and it should happen before positions get taken in correspondence, because undertakings given in panic surrender freedom the law would have left you.
The enforcement reality: covenants are enforced by injunction — which imports everything this site teaches: the urgency disciplines, the evidence, the undertaking as to damages, and delay’s corrosion of the claim. An enforceable covenant unenforced for months becomes, practically, neither.
A covenant to enforce — or one hanging over you? The specific analysis: 01 5827148.