Kansas City Business Lawyer Charlie Hyland: Non-Compete Agreements

Employees owe a duty of loyalty to their employers. This is a very basic tenet, but it has wide-ranging implications. When your organization's vital interests or competitive edge are at stake, a single employee violating a non-compete agreement or failing to protect your trade secrets can make a serious impact.

At the Overland Park offices of the Hyland Law Firm, LLC, we help businesses throughout the Kansas City metro area protect their rights and their vital proprietary interests through non-compete agreements, confidentiality agreements, and trade secrets protection and enforcement of those rights.

Helping Your Business Create and Enforce Your Rights
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If there has been a breach of a non-compete agreement or other protective covenant, the first step to take is to write a "cease and desist letter" demanding an end to the violation or infringement. At that point, you are focused on minimizing the damage, but you may also want compensation for any losses or disadvantages brought about by the breaching party's actions.

Whether you have just discovered the breach or have successfully demanded its cessation, it is essential to know that you have taken every available step to protect your business interests. Even if the violation has stopped, we may advise going to court for an injunction against further violations and to seek damages for the harm already done. The one thing you cannot afford to do is ignore the issue and fail to protect your rights.

Attorney Charlie Hyland has an in-depth understanding of these issues based on experience representing local businesses and corporations. He understands what it takes to put together a comprehensive agreement that protects your rights and is enforceable. We can help you protect your organization's essential competitive edge and business advantage by protecting:

• Pricing policies
  • How your company determines the most advantageous price for your products or service
  • The range of prices you may be charging various customers

• Bid information
  • How you price your bids and underlying supplies and costs
  • Projects you are bidding on or are considering
• Cost information: competitors would love to know your costs so they can better estimate their own costs or undercut your price
• Key customer lists and other relationship information
• Formulas and processes
  • What goes into your proprietary process?
  • How do you provide that level of service?
• Internal policies that offer a competitive advantage
• Trade secrets and proprietary processes
  • Manufacturing processes
  • Recipes
  • Customer service policies
• Copyrighted information or "gray area" protected information, such as software code

Your Options to Protect Your Advantage

There are a number of different options you have for protecting your business advantage and competitive edge:

• Confidentiality Policies: A confidentiality policy or agreement can be written for anything, and it does not have to be a trade secret. You can keep current and past employees, vendors, contractors, or anyone else from releasing pertinent company information if they sign the contract.
• Trade Secret Protection: The right contract can keep anyone who finds out your trade secrets from revealing them to your competition or outside sources. These offer greater protection than confidentiality policies, but the secret must be proprietary, relatively unusual and a secret.
• Non-Compete Agreements: The more information a former employee, manager, or owner has of a company, the more potential damage they can do to your business. They may have a reason to take advantage of that knowledge for their own benefit, but a non-compete agreement can protect the rights of your business.

Contact Us

At the Hyland Law Firm, LLC, in Overland Park, we pride ourselves on personal and accessible service to our clients. Open weekdays 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. with evening, weekend and off-site appointments available. Contact us today for a free initial consultation.