[moron4hire]

Had a friend mention he was going to do this on a job interview and the company he was talking to almost immediately cut him a settlement check to keep him from doing it and to just make him go away.

Don't ever assume something a company is doing is on the up-and-up.

[xienze]

Can you elaborate? He was interviewed as in, came in off the street, so to speak, to interview, made mention of having a lawyer review contract language and was cut a check?

Or was this an interview with the acquiring company?

[moron4hire]

He went through a phone screening, then a technical interview. They made him an offer and sent him a contract. A clause in particular caught his eye:

    Employee fully and unconditionally grants, assigns and transfers to the Company any 
    and all Inventions created, developed, discovered, conceived, invented, learned, or
    suggested by Employee during the performance of Employee’s obligations under this
    Agreement and for a period of one (1) year thereafter, whether or not such 
    Inventions are made during working hours or on the property of the Company, whether
    or not such Inventions are related to the business, activities or interests of the 
    Company and whether or not such Inventions are patentable, copyrightable, or 
    protectable with a trademark, service mark or otherwise.

He asked me to look it over, a more experienced eye I guess. As soon as I opened the document, big red flag, it was 15 pages long. I've never had anything over 3 pages. The more I read it, the worse it got. They really, really needled in on the invention thing, and had all these side rules that it included anything that wasn't even patentable, and that you wouldn't argue against any claim they made unless you could prove that your work had been done before starting there by producing a patent. They required 30-days notice before leaving, which in PA is illegal to stipulate. There were restrictions for two years against soliciting anyone they had ever solicited, not just their customers. There were statements that unpaid overtime was expected, which is also illegal in PA (employees are allowed to work unpaid overtime but it cannot be a requirement for employment). And there were weird things in there like stipulating that the employee worked exclusively for the CEO. What was the point of that? It was just a complete mess.

So I suggested he should get a lawyer to review it. In the mean time, they started pressuring him to sign, he told them it was with the lawyer right now (though he hadn't yet found one, he was just stalling), and they freaked. Cut him a check of a few thousand dollars to go away and agree to a gag order.

But I didn't agree to shit! However, I still won't name them because I'm fairly certain they'd launch a full-frontal libel lawsuit against me. Just one of those kinds of places.

[Silhouette]

during the performance of Employee’s obligations under this Agreement and for a period of one (1) year thereafter

This sort of term is exactly why you get a lawyer to review the contract. If it's enforceable (big "if", in many places) then that's a guaranteed year you can't realistically either be employed by anyone else in the industry or be working on something like open source projects to keep your skills up to date. As career death sentences go, that's probably pretty close for anyone early in a career in software, web development, or any similar creative field.

[moron4hire]

That's exactly what I told my friend.

[gaadd33]

Why would they do that in a job interview? Why not just not extend an offer? That seems very strange.

You should mention what company it was, I would love to go to a few interviews and then walk away with a settlement check for no reason.

[kyllo]

They really didn't want any outside lawyers to see that contract. A good sign that it had abusive terms.

[acveilleux]

Their biggest worry was probably that the reviewing lawyer would smell blood, track down other employees (or former employees) and offer them to litigate on contingent. Truly abusive contracts will get thrown out and all those mandatory unpaid overtime hours and what not will suddenly become owed, with interests.