[Ethan_Mick]

Good.

I've seen over and over this harm friends in frustrating ways. Tech aside, non-competes in other industries are completely insane. My wife is an optometrist and all local shops have draconic noncompetes you are forced to sign. If you leave the shop you can't work within 30 miles (or more!) of that location.

I've had friends move entire cities just so they can get out of a terrible work situation. Worse, I've had friends stay in bad situations because their noncomplete would force them to move or drive way too far for work.

And since everyone does it, they're resigned to "it's just the way it is" and nobody wants to risk being sued.

[bumby]

>If you leave the shop you can't work within 30 miles

I know one person who worked in sales and was banned from selling in an entire region of the country. She was completely open about this when being recruited by another employer. That new employer appeared completely willing to work around the non-compete clause to bring her onboard.

That was, until she was actually hired and she was almost immediately pressured to sell throughout the forbidden area. When she said she was willing to, but only if the new employer would sign an agreement to cover any of her associated legal fees, they eventually backed off on the demands.

These situations always seem to push the risk to the employee to the benefit of the employer.

[skeletal88]

In normal countries these are only valid when the previous employer pays for the time you are not allowed to work.

If I work at a bank as a developer then I can go straight to the next one, if the previous employer doesn't keep paying me a compensation for not working at the next bank.

Not being able to 'in sales' as sibling commenter says here is just insane, and should not hold in court anywhere.

[brightball]

IMO the primary concern at an office like that is having access to patient data and then enticing them to go elsewhere. If the person wants to go work elsewhere, totally fine. The concern is trying to take customers or other staff with them.

I know somebody that happened to. Company opened a branch office and one of the senior staff rented an office around the corner, took half the staff and patients. Stuck them with multi year lease agreements, after the business already bore the entire startup cost of paying people while building up a patient load, marketing, etc.

I understand the opposition to draconian non-competes but there’s a flip side of this to protect an investment that is very valid.

[ssharp]

There are usually non-solicitation clauses as well that prevent you from actively recruiting former co-workers and clients/customers. That's different than a non-compete.

[arrosenberg]

Which should also be unenforceable. Freedom of association is in the Constitution.

[Retric]

Protecting trade secrets and customer/client lists etc don’t require non competes.

What they are generally used for is to limit competition or depress wages both of which are economically harmful.