Legal Question in Business Law in New York

Re: Non disclosure/confidentiality agreement

Your legal rights and responsibilities will be governed by any non-compete, non-disclosure and/or employment agreement you may have signed. A reading of any agreements that you may have signed would give us the information needed to answer your question.

I recommend that you seek counsel from an attorney before servicing any of your old clients.

This communication is for informational purposes only, is not legal advice and is not intended to create an attorney-client relationship or any other type of relationship, which, under the policies of Adelman & Lavaia, LLC and Gary Adelman, Esq. , can only be created by execution of a formal retainer agreement.

Re: Non disclosure/confidentiality agreement

Hard to say without reading the agreement you signed. While you may be correct that the customer names are well known, and even the contact people there, it is possible some other language in your agreement may legally stop you from making contact. The time period depends upon the language of the contract. Only thing in your favor, possibly, may be that if you are unable to otherwise seek gainful employment, a court could possibly rule that the agreement is too restrictive. Again, more information is needed from you and the reading of the contract language is required, to enable me to give you more than a general answer.

Re: Non disclosure/confidentiality agreement

Not clear from your question if you ever signed a non-compete, non-solicitation or non-disclosure clauses/agreements with your former employer. If not, in the employment context such covenants normally cannot be implied after your employment with the first company terminated. If you did (it may have been a part of your employment agreement, offer letter or employment handbook), what is the term of the non-compete or non-solicitation clauses ? It cannot be forever and it cannot be unreasonably long.

However, if your first employer claims that you have misappropriated their trade secrets (such as customer lists), there is no time limit on how long you are obligated from refraining to use such information. This then becomes a question of whether, as you suggest, the source of your sales leads in fact comes from the public domain.

In any event, your contracts, correspondence from your first employer, nature of your current employer's business and other facts and circumstances must be examined carefully to see what legal exposure you may have and how best to avoid litigation.

This reply is in the nature of general information, is not legal advice and should not be relied upon as such.