The resignation was Friday. The download logs tell Monday’s story. By the following week, familiar clients are going quiet. What happens next depends less on the wrongdoing than on what the business does in the first seven days.
The First-Week Playbook
Preserve forensically: the download logs, email trails and device history, imaged properly so they stand up — amateur inspection can damage the very evidence that wins. Quantify: what went, which clients it reaches, what pipeline it exposes — the scope defines both the risk and the remedy. Send the strong letter fast: return, deletion, undertakings, preservation — it sometimes ends the matter outright, and it always strengthens the application that follows. Decide the injunction question now: confidence protects the information itself, valid covenants restrain the conduct, and springboard relief targets the unfair head start — the answer to “but it’s all public now.”
The Mistakes That Lose These Cases
Delay above all: the employer seeking urgent relief a month after discovery answers hard questions about how urgent it really was — delay kills injunctions, and this field proves it weekly. Over-reliance on the covenant: if it’s boilerplate-wide, it may be void — the confidence and springboard routes don’t depend on it, which is why the strategy uses all three. The tainted investigation: evidence gathered unlawfully or handled carelessly costs credibility exactly when it’s needed. And ignoring the undertaking as to damages — honestly sized, it’s usually manageable in these cases relative to what’s protected, but it belongs in the first-week decision, not the courtroom corridor.
Both chairs served: this practice also advises departing employees who’ve received the threatening letter — and that vantage is exactly why the employer-side letters it writes are the kind that get taken seriously. The full terrain: Springboard & Confidential Information.
Downloads discovered? The week is already running: 01 5827148.