Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: is this legal ?

Two or more employees of an established business often get together and talk about starting their own business, sometimes in competition with the employer. It is not illegal for employee A to ask employee B if he or she would be interested in joining the new company, and neither the discussions nor the inquiry about interest in a job are illegal collusion. However, such discussions, invitations and plans can sometimes step over the border into actionable, tortious activity if the planning includes intentional interference with or disruption of the employer's business or misappropriating its trade secrets.

The California Supreme Court considered this whole subject area in a fairly recent case, Reeves v. Hanlon (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1130, in which case the court said; "a defendant is not subject to liability for intentional interference if the interference consists merely of extending a job offer that induces an employee to terminate his or her at-will employment."

You might want to look up and read the whole case to get a better handle on the competing interests protected by the law - the right of employees to know about opportunities and sieze them, versus the right of the employer not to be subjected to UNFAIR competition - fair competition is encouraged and protected, dirty tricks and pilfering client lists is disfavored.