The prevailing sentiment these days is that legally binding agreements that restrict the employment activities of former employees are usually unfair. An executive order from several years ago instructed the FTC to penalize companies that require employees to sign excessively restrictive non-compete agreements. Montana case law has generally favored employees in disputes over non-compete provisions. While it decides on a case-by-case basis which non-compete agreements to enforce, it generally refuses to enforce the ones that are excessively restrictive with regard to duration, geographic scope, or restricted activities. While Montana law comes down firmly against non-compete provisions that effectively say, “You’ll never work in this town again,” it tends to allow specific restrictions, such as prohibiting the solicitation of clients. The Bozeman non-solicitation of clients lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP can help you determine what is legally acceptable regarding your interactions with former clients of your former employer.
Who’s Afraid of Solicitation of Clients?
Solicitation of clients is when one business directly contacts the clients of a competitor business to market its services to those clients. It is not a problem if, for example, an employee of Mike’s Ice Cream leaves promotional fliers on the windshields of the cars in the parking lot of Larry’s Hamburgers. It only makes sense that people who buy ice cream at an ice cream parlor might also want to go to a burger restaurant on another occasion. Even in the most financially stressful times, buying more ice cream does not necessarily mean buying fewer burgers.
Solicitation of clients is a bigger problem when there is a limited number of prospective clients in a geographic area. For example, imagine that Dave’s Dental Chairs manufactures the chairs for the treatment rooms of most of the dentists’ offices in southwestern Montana. It is a problem if, when she quits working for Dave’s Dental Chairs, Debbie emails herself a list of the contact information of all of Dave’s clients, and several months later, she emails those same clients to announce the grand opening of Debbie’s Dental Chairs and to invite them to buy their dental chairs from the new business, perhaps even offering a discounted price as a promotion.
With businesses like restaurants, solicitation of individual clients is not usually unfair competition. Some people are frequent customers of both Taco Bell and Chipotle. Not every gain for one restaurant is a loss for the other. Solicitation of clients is only a serious problem when companies’ client lists are relatively small, and especially when they are confidential. It is not a problem if Debbie opens a dental chair store and researches local dentists’ offices in Bozeman to advertise her products; that is a normal part of doing business. It is a problem if she contacts the dentists’ offices’ office managers directly at email addresses that are not publicly posted on the dentists’ offices’ website and are only known to people who have done business with the dentists’ offices before. The Bozeman employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP can help you resolve disputes related to the solicitation of former clients.
How Non-Compete Clauses Can Prevent Solicitation of Clients
When business partnerships break up, or when a managerial or similarly decision-making employee quits working for a company, the former partners or former employer can try to protect themselves from financial losses by asking the other party to sign a non-compete agreement. The non-compete agreement should specify how long the former employee must wait before contacting the clients of the former employer. To ensure that, in the event of a dispute, the court rules that your non-compete provisions are enforceable, it should specify that the former employee may not contact former clients about the former employee’s competing business, rather than simply stating that the former employee may not compete with the former employer.
2025 is a Big Year for Montana Legislation on Non-Solicitation in the Healthcare Industry
Not too long ago, employers freely asked employees to sign non-compete agreements, even when there was no substantial threat of the employee causing the employer financial losses by working for a business that competed with the employer. Employment contracts often included non-compete provisions that prohibited former employees from seeking employment with competitor businesses, even when the employee’s work did not expose him or her to confidential business information. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, 20% of employees employed under contract but without bachelor’s degrees had non-compete provisions in their contracts.
The turning point against the widespread use of non-compete provisions in employment contracts was a 2021 executive order authorizing the FTC to take action against employers that misused non-compete provisions. Montana offers workers even more protection against restrictive non-solicitation and non-compete provisions than federal law does. Montana enacted two new laws in 2025, restricting non-competes in the healthcare industry. Before 2025, Montana law prohibited employers from subjecting addiction medicine physicians, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychiatrists, and mental health counselors to non-compete agreements. The two new laws expanded the provisions to cover other professionals in the healthcare industry and related fields, including registered nurses and physician assistants. One of these new laws, which goes into effect at the beginning of 2026, enables employers to require former employees who subsequently work for competitors to repay certain benefits that the former employer paid for them, such as tuition reimbursement and relocation stipends.
How Employment Lawyers Can Help With Non-Solicitation Cases
The laws on non-compete and non-solicitation clauses are always changing. If you are involved in a dispute over a non-solicitation clause, you will probably be able to find support in Montana case law both for your position and for the other party’s position. A Bozeman non-solicitation agreement lawyer can help you make the strongest possible case for continuing to engage in your current business activities.
Contact HKM Employment Attorneys LLP, About Non-Solicitation Agreements
The Bozeman employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP, can counsel you about non-solicitation provisions in employment contracts. Contact the employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP in Bozeman, Montana, to set up a consultation.
