San Diego Restrictive Covenant Lawyer

Are you looking for a restrictive covenant lawyer in San Diego, CA?

At Grey Ocean, PC, we have a restrictive covenant practice built on more than seven years of advisory experience.

If your company relies on confidentiality, non-solicitation, or invention assignment agreements to protect what it has built in San Diego, those documents need to be drafted for California, not borrowed from a template written for another state. A covenant that overreaches gives you no protection and can create liability of its own. A San Diego, CA restrictive covenant lawyer can tell you which provisions will hold and which need to be rewritten.

Mike Flesuras has spent more than seven years on the drafting side of these agreements and on the disputes that follow when they fail. The agreements your company already uses are the starting point, and a first read usually shows which ones are doing real work.

Restrictive Covenant Lawyer San Diego, CA

A restrictive covenant attorney in San Diego drafts and reviews the agreements that limit what employees, founders, and business partners can do with company information and relationships during and after the relationship. On the employer side, that work has two halves. The first is building covenants that California courts will enforce, which rules out most non-competes and pushes the protection into confidentiality, trade secret, and invention assignment terms. The second is responding when a departing employee, or a new hire’s former employer, claims a covenant has been breached.

Quits in California averaged 327,000 per month over the year ending November 2025, according to BLS labor turnover data. When an employee leaves, the company loses access to that person’s knowledge and customer contacts. The agreements the employee signed at hiring set the limits on what the company can do about it.

Types of Restrictive Covenant Cases We Handle in San Diego, CA

Covenants usually enter the employment relationship through the offer letter and the standard agreements it references, then resurface when someone leaves. Our San Diego restrictive covenant attorney handles the drafting on the front end and the disputes on the back end.

• Non-compete agreements. California generally does not enforce non-competes against employees, and the Attorney General’s guidance warns employers against including them. If a non-compete is still in your paperwork, we remove it and put the protection into confidentiality and trade secret terms that a California court will uphold.
• Confidentiality agreements. A well-drafted confidentiality agreement is the foundation of protection for a California employer. We define confidential information precisely and tie it to how the company actually handles data. The scope stays within what a court will enforce.
• Invention assignment agreements. Companies that build products need clear ownership of what employees create on the job. We draft assignment provisions that capture work product without reaching into an employee’s personal projects, which is where these agreements most often fail.
• Employee and customer non-solicitation clauses. California courts have grown skeptical of employee non-solicitation provisions, and customer non-solicitation clauses generally hold up only where trade secret information is involved. We draft these clauses narrowly and tell you plainly when a provision is not worth including.
• Trade secret defense. When your company hires from a competitor, the competitor may claim that the new hire brought trade secrets with them. We build onboarding protocols that reduce that risk and defend the company when a claim arrives anyway.
• Executive severance. Separation agreements often carry their own covenants, including non-disparagement and confidentiality terms. California limits what a confidentiality provision in a severance agreement can cover, and we draft within those limits.
• Equity compensation. Forfeiture and clawback provisions tied to post-employment conduct raise the same enforceability questions as a non-compete. We structure equity terms so that the incentive survives a challenge.
• Founder partnership agreements. Covenants between co-founders, and covenants given by an owner in the sale of a business, are treated differently from employee covenants under California law. We draft them to fit the exception they rely on.

Why Choose Grey Ocean, PC as my Restrictive Covenant Lawyer in San Diego, CA?

Recognized Counsel With a Published Record on Covenants

Grey Ocean, PC was recognized in the Chambers USA California Spotlight Guide 2026 for Labor & Employment, and Mike Flesuras has published and been quoted on restrictive covenants and executive compensation in professional and industry publications. Before founding our firm in 2025, he was named Top Attorney at Gordon Rees in 2020 and Top Orator there in 2019. He is a member of the San Diego chapter of ProVisors and speaks at employment law conferences on these issues.

Counsel Built Around Founders and Growing Companies

Founders who contact an executive employment lawyer in San Diego, CA early usually avoid the covenant dispute entirely, because the agreements were drafted correctly at the start. Our practice is built for innovative companies working through employment law compliance while they hire quickly, and a San Diego restrictive covenant lawyer who understands that pace drafts differently from one who does not.

Understanding Restrictive Covenant Cases

Types of Restrictive Covenants and How California Treats Them

California treats each category of covenant on its own terms, and the differences decide what an employer can actually protect. Non-competes are largely off the table for employees. Confidentiality and trade secret protections are strong when drafted well. Everything else sits somewhere in between.

• Non-compete clauses restrict where an employee can work after leaving. For California employees, these are generally void, and including one can expose the employer rather than protect it.
• Confidentiality clauses restrict use and disclosure of company information. These are enforceable when the definition of confidential information is specific and reasonable.
• Trade secret protections cover information that derives value from being secret and that the company takes reasonable steps to protect. This is the strongest tool a California employer has.
• Invention assignment provisions give the company ownership of work product created in the scope of employment, subject to limits protecting an employee’s own inventions.
• Non-solicitation clauses restrict recruiting former colleagues or approaching customers. Enforceability depends on the wording and on whether trade secrets are involved.
• Sale-of-business covenants are given by an owner selling a company and are treated far more favorably than employee covenants.

What Are Important Aspects of a Restrictive Covenant Case?

The strength of a covenant is decided long before anyone breaches it. A restrictive covenant lawyer in San Diego, CA spends most of the work on drafting and on the practices that support enforcement.

1. Protection depends on conduct, not just paper. A confidentiality agreement means little if the company shares its information freely and marks nothing as confidential.
2. Templates drafted for other states are the most common source of unenforceable terms in California agreements.
3. Onboarding a hire from a competitor deserves a written protocol, because that is when trade secret claims from the former employer are most common.
4. Departure procedures, including device return and access shutoff, become the evidence in a later dispute.
5. Overreach carries a cost, because an unenforceable covenant can invite a claim from the employee rather than deter one.

What Is the Restrictive Covenant Case Timeline?

Drafting projects run on the company’s schedule. Disputes move fast, because the relief a company usually needs is an order stopping the use of information before the damage is done. A restrictive covenant attorney in San Diego works both tracks.

• For drafting, you send the current agreements and we return redlines and a rollout plan for existing employees.
• When an employee departs, we review the exit facts and the agreements within days to decide whether a demand letter is warranted.
• If a former employer accuses your new hire, we respond in writing and set up a wall around the information at issue.
• Where a court order is needed, the filing and the evidence come together in weeks rather than months.
• Most disputes resolve through negotiation once the enforceable terms are separated from the unenforceable ones.

What Should You Bring to Your Restrictive Covenant Case Review?

Bring the agreements and the facts about how the company actually handles its information.

• Every restrictive covenant agreement currently in use, including confidentiality and invention assignment terms.
• Handbook sections and policies on data security, device use, and information classification.
• For a departure, the exit checklist, access logs, and any communication with the former employee.
• For a new hire, the candidate’s prior agreements and any correspondence from the former employer.

The agreements get read before the first call, so that call can go straight to what is enforceable and what to do next.

San Diego, CA Courts and Business Resources for Restrictive Covenant Matters

The following resources are relevant to San Diego employers drafting or enforcing covenants. Our firm does not endorse any of them, and inclusion here is for information only.

• Breach of contract and injunction actions over covenants are filed in the San Diego Superior Court Central Division, and the court’s filing-location rules determine where a civil case belongs.
• The San Diego SBA district office serves San Diego and Imperial Counties with counseling and resources for small employers building their first employment policies.
• The San Diego Law Library provides public access to California statutes, treatises, and case reporters at its downtown location.
• The San Diego County Bar Association runs a State Bar-certified Lawyer Referral and Information Service for business owners seeking counsel in a specific area.

Reach Out to Grey Ocean, PC to Start the Conversation

Most covenant disputes trace back to a document that was never built for California. Send our San Diego, CA restrictive covenant attorney the agreements your company uses, and we’ll get started together. New inquiries get a prompt reply, and disputes with a departing employee move to the front of the line. Contact us today to get started.