What to do if…
you receive a legal threat from a former employer about contacting clients or colleagues

What to do now

1. Freeze the risky conduct. For now, pause proactive business-related contact with former clients or customers, and pause messages to former coworkers about joining you, switching vendors, moving accounts, or hiring.
2. Check whether this is only a threat letter or actual court paperwork. Look for words like “summons,” “complaint,” “temporary restraining order,” “TRO,” “injunction,” “hearing,” or “court.” Calendar any deadline or hearing date exactly as written and contact an employment attorney quickly.
3. Preserve the threat and your proof. Save the letter, envelope, email headers, attachments, texts, DMs, call logs, and relevant calendar entries. Write a short timeline of who contacted whom first, when, and what was said.
4. Pull the agreements that matter. Find:
   • offer letter and any noncompete, non-solicit, non-disclosure, confidentiality, or invention agreement
   • severance or separation agreement
   • bonus, commission, training-cost, or repayment agreement tied to leaving
   • any signed policy referenced in the threat
5. Separate “people contact” issues from “information” issues. Threats often combine client or coworker non-solicitation with confidentiality or trade-secret allegations. Customer lists, pricing, internal documents, CRM exports, templates, and business plans may create different risks from ordinary personal knowledge.
6. If company material is on your devices or cloud accounts, stop using it and leave it unchanged. Do not delete it, edit it, rename it, forward it, or upload it somewhere new. Keep it isolated and ask counsel how to return or preserve it safely.
7. Do not assume a noncompete is either valid or invalid. The FTC nationwide Noncompete Rule is not currently in effect or enforceable, and state law still matters. Noncompetes and non-solicits vary a lot by state, job role, wording, timing, and facts.
8. Check for legal help you already have. Look for legal expense coverage through insurance, an employee benefit, a union, a professional association, or your new employer’s process. If your new employer was copied, keep internal messages brief and factual until you have legal advice.
9. If the threat targets group discussion about wages or working conditions, flag that separately. Many covered private-sector employees have federal labor-law protections for acting together about pay or working conditions, but coverage is not universal. Do not rely on this without advice if the letter also alleges solicitation, confidential information, or trade secrets.
10. If you must respond before you have a lawyer, send only a holding reply. Confirm receipt, say you are seeking counsel, and ask them to identify the specific contract clauses and alleged contacts by name and date. Do not provide your full story, documents, admissions, or promises yet.