What to Do: Employee Leaves With Trade Secrets
Losing an employee, especially a key employee, is difficult for any business. You’ve invested time, know-how, and resources in your employees and they in turn are the lifeblood of your business. Unfortunately, people leave and when they leave, it is usually to work for a competitor or even to start a competing business. If that employee had access to your company’s confidential information such as customer lists, customer preferences, pricing formulas, and any other information that gives you a competitive edge, you want to make sure that the employee can’t take that valuable information to a competitor. How do you protect trade secrets from a competitor when an employee leaves? I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news: If the first time you think about protecting your company’s confidential information is after a key employee leaves, it may be too late. One of the fundamental requirements under California and Federal laws that protect trade secrets is the requirement that you made reasonable efforts to keep that information a secret. Thus, if you haven’t thought about how … Continue reading
Trial Preparation – Anatomy of a Lawsuit Part VIII
This series applies to California lawsuits only. For rules regarding your state’s civil litigation procedure, visit the website for your specific state’s judicial branch. This is a very broad overview. Multiple considerations must take place and detailed analysis goes into each step. To recap, we’ve discussed some considerations before filing a lawsuit such as What is the Deadline to File a Lawsuit and Where to File a Lawsuit. We’ve also discussed How to File a Lawsuit, Responding to a Lawsuit, Discovery, and Mediation. Here’s a visual representation of what a lawsuit looks like. This article focuses on the phase within the blue circle. Although the above flow chart depicts trial preparation as a distinctive step before trial, in reality, your attorney is preparing for the trial from the minute s/he meets with you for a consultation. Trial considerations such as jury appeal, your credibility and the credibility of other witnesses, and the evidence available will influence whether an attorney accepts the case and what theories to pursue. Once a lawsuit is filed, each stage in the litigation is meant to prepare for trial: i.e., pleadings, motions, … Continue reading
Mediation – Anatomy of a Lawsuit Part VII
This series applies to California lawsuits only. For rules regarding your state’s civil litigation procedure, visit the website for your specific state’s judicial branch. This is a very broad overview. Multiple considerations must take place and detailed analysis goes into each step. To recap, we’ve discussed some considerations before filing a lawsuit such as What is the Deadline to File a Lawsuit and Where to File a Lawsuit. We’ve also discussed How to File a Lawsuit, Responding to a Lawsuit, and Discovery. Here’s a visual representation of what a lawsuit looks like. This article focuses on the phase within the blue circle. Although represented in the above flowchart as happening after the discovery phase, a case may go to mediation before a lawsuit is even filed or litigated (early or pre-litigation), at any other time, or may not go to mediation at all. It is an entirely an optional process aimed at settling the dispute before the parties spend the time and money to prepare for trial. However, if the parties are serious about settling a dispute, discovery gives each side a better sense of … Continue reading
Computer Fraud Prevention: How to Protect Your Company’s Information
In today’s business environment, companies live and die by the information and data you possess. Your company’s confidential information is probably housed on a network that is accessible by some, or all, of your employees. Are you doing enough to protect your company’s data from computer fraud leaving with an employee and winding up with a competitor? The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) The CFAA is a federal law that makes it illegal to “intentionally access a computer without authorization or exceed[ing] authorized access, and thereby obtain[ing] . . . information from any protected computer.” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2). Although commonly used to prosecute criminal hackers, the CFA is valuable to employers for the following reasons: 1) the CFAA captures a broader range of conduct than does a traditional trade secrets claim (it doesn’t require a showing that the accessed information rises to the level of a trade secret); 2) the CFAA is one of the few independent causes of action an employer can use to pursue a federal cause of action relating to such theft; and 3) the CFAA … Continue reading