Q: I am concerned about a non compete agreement in a job offer.
The company is an engineering consulting firm that works with medical device companies, including most of the big name medical device companies in the US. The noncompete says that during my employment and for 1 year after I cannot work for any Client of this company, any competitor or their Clients, etc. To me this seems very restrictive and like it would exclude the majority of the medical device industry from my career prospects. It would make sense to restrict employment in the specific area that I am working with (for example if my client project is an orthopedics company, I can't go work directly for an orthopedics company) but to restrict employment to every client that the company has worked with in all fields seems very restrictive.
A:
Although Florida law allows most employers to use non-compete clauses in their employment agreements, the non-competes must be "reasonable" in scope. ("Scope" includes the kind of work, the distance and the time involved.)
For example, Florida employers cannot impose a non-compete that prevents the employee from finding similar work in their field, anywhere in Florida for the next 20 years.
On the other hand, employers can impose reasonable time and distance restrictions that apply in situations involving the same kind of work for competitor(s) in the same city of county.
So, in order to respond to your specific situation I would need to see the written employment contract itself.
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