On May 4, 2025, Steven E. Cole, Managing Partner at Adams Leclair LLP, joined a panel including former judges for a focused discussion on the enforcement of restrictive employment covenants in New York. The panel discussion was a part of the New York State Bar Association’s Commercial and Federal Litigation Section Spring Meeting in Monticello, New York. Cole brought a practitioner’s perspective to the conversation—particularly as it relates to how restrictive covenants function within competitive, project-based, and regulated industries like financial services.

The panel discussed how businesses use restrictive covenants to mitigate risk in workforce mobility, especially where high-value client relationships, proprietary processes, and specialized knowledge are at stake. In the financial services sector, where client migration and group departures are more prevalent, the panel discussed how firms are leveraging contractual tools—such as non-solicits and garden leave provisions—to safeguard client books and prevent large-scale defection, particularly in the absence of a corporate raiding claim under New York law. This included strategies for advising clients on both sides of the equation: employers seeking to hire talent subject to existing covenants, and those aiming to enforce them against departing employees.

Other topics included the overlap between restrictive covenants and trade secret law and how employers can pursue damages in breach scenarios.  

With co-panelists Hon. (Ret.) Elizabeth H. Emerson (Ruskin Moscou Faltischeck, P.C. & FedArb), Hon. (Ret.) Shirley W. Kornreich (JAMS), and moderator Anne Sekel (Foley & Lardner LLP), this discussion provided substantive, real-world applications for in-house counsel, litigators, and business leaders navigating the increasingly high-stakes terrain of restrictive covenant enforcement.

Attorney Steve Cole

Steve Cole with panelists