Unfair Competition, Restrictive Covenants, and Trade Secrets

Winston & Strawn helps clients obtain TROs and preliminary injunctions against former executives to prevent them from disclosing trade secrets and other confidential information to our clients' competitors. We often use trade secret litigation to assist clients located in states that do not enforce non-competes. Our labor and employment attorneys also are frequently called upon by our clients to assist with drafting and implementing executive employment agreements that involve non-competition, non-solicitation and confidentiality covenants.

We have developed novel strategies to contend with executives who go to work for a competitor and attempt to recruit other executives away from our client. In one such case, to stem the tide of lost business and employees, our attorneys devised a strategy in which the executives being recruited by the former executive were sued by our client in eight different locations for violations of their non-compete agreements. We also created an extranet so all of the firms involved in the case could access key documents and pleadings to create a unified approach to the litigation.