With employee mobility and desire for flexible work arrangements continually increasing, some employers are turning to non-compete agreements to limit the disruption to their workforces. But as some employers have been using non-competes with low-wage, unskilled workers, criticism has followed—including a recent White House call for states to ban ...

*President Obama signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act into law on Wednesday afternoon. Billy Hammel, Bill McMahon, and Anna Rothschild have provided outstanding analysis of the law and what it means for employers in this Client Bulletin.

*And, speaking of Billy Hammel, he had a great blog post this week on the White House Report on Non-Compete Agreements. (Preview: The White House isn't ...

Last Thursday, the White House issued a report titled “Non-Compete Agreements: Analysis of the Usage, Potential Issues, and State Responses” and an accompanying blog post. Relying heavily on a report earlier this year from the U.S. Treasury, the White House report criticizes the perceived misuse of non-competes, highlights their negative impact on the ...

From the annals of "Oh, no - I didn't -" . . .

The Winston-Salem Journal (my hometown paper - yay!) reports that a company is suing a former employee in the North Carolina Business Court for breach of his confidentiality and non-compete agreements.*

*The article ran in the Winston-Salem Journal but was written by a reporter from the Greensboro News & Record.

Douglas Poling was fired by Evo ...

Religious accommodation, the Oscars, non-competes, social media, Brian Williams versus Bill O'Reilly, workplace violence, and inspirational employees -- we have it all today! Here are some links about recent news and court cases involving the workplace, followed by some points for discussion if you'd like to comment.

Supreme Court justices seem to side ...

February is Black History Month, and in honor of this special time, our Employment Law Blog Carnival will feature some of the many, many great African-American musical artists.

We'll start by going back to the turn of the last century, with Scott Joplin, the King of Ragtime. While a child in Texarkana, young Joplin taught himself to play the piano in a white-owned home where his mother ...

NOTE: I apologize for the delayed posting. Our blogging platform was having technical difficulties for much of the day on Friday, so I decided to wait until Monday to post this to make sure you saw it!

In my last post, in response to the bombings at the Boston Marathon, I talked about some ways that employers can prevent violence in the workplace and even avoid hiring the type of employee who ...