Another consideration is whether the contract can be enforced and your legal recourse if the counter-party attempts to enforce an invalid contract clause. This is particularly true for noncompetes.
A better piece of advice than "never sign" is to simply find an employment lawyer and discuss the ramifications of the contract prior to signing.
More importantly, I would also happily fight them in court if it came to that (and retire on the triple damages).
I'm thinking of some of the other clauses:
1. "one-sided termination clause": Every contract in an at-will jurisdictions without a guaranteed exit bonus contains, implicitly or otherwise, a "one-sided termination clause". I have never seen a contract for "normal working stiffs" that contains an exit bonus, and I've only ever worked in at-will jurisdictions.
2. IP assignment
3. Confidentiality agreements with broad language
The whole thing is laughably unenforceable as well. They're trying to end run around federal law protecting members of the uniformed services. You can write any contract you want & have anyone you want sign it about. Doesn't mean anything, at all.
Also I'm pretty sure if I got called up to go to war, there is going to be someone in the DoD who can give me a little legal help in explaining to the landlord how hard they need to pound sand.
So yea, in a case like that that part of the contract would be struck, but it isn’t a get out of jail free card for the entire contract.
The same company also just dropped off an "updated" contract a few months later and told me that I had to review it and sign it or move out by the end of the month. I obviously just ignored this.
DIY contracts are the best to sign because they are such a mess.
Reasonable companies don’t want to get a reputation for litigating employment clauses like this. Sure, there are outliers, but nobody wants to be on the front page of HN for suing an engineer over a side hustle. Especially not in this labor market!
Side note: it was delightful to me that the engineers carefully read the agreement and one of them consulted their own lawyer. Most people don’t do that.
No, and my posts are not legal advice.
> Or do you have a lawyer review every contract you sign?
Yes, and they provide me with legal advice specific to my situation.
> Just curious how you are so confident a particular contract, or clause within, is unenforceable. Not saying you're wrong, but how do you know?
MA statute is very clearly written and its courts don't have a reputation for fucking around with legislative intent.
And I'm free to work on other stuff or have a side business. People in the company disagree on how much of that needs to be disclosed, though.