Boulder Non-Compete Agreement Attorney

Colorado Non-Compete Law: 25+ Years Protecting Employees & Employers

A non-compete agreement is a contract that prohibits an employee from competing with a former employer after employment ends. Businesses use them to protect their workforce, intellectual property, and trade secrets, but the agreements must be reasonable, and Colorado law presumes them void unless they meet specific statutory exceptions under C.R.S. § 8-2-113.

At the Patricia S. Bellac Law Firm, we represent employees, businesses, corporations, and other employment entities in all aspects of non-compete and confidentiality agreement matters. Patricia S. Bellac brings more than 25 years of experience in employment law and litigation. Call us today to schedule your complimentary phone consultation.

What We Handle for Employees & Employers

We assist both sides of the employment relationship across the full lifecycle of a non-compete matter, from drafting and negotiating agreements to defending or challenging enforcement. Whether you are a business owner trying to protect legitimate interests or an employee facing restrictions on your next job, we provide the personalized counsel your situation requires.

Our services include:

• Drafting or enforcing confidentiality agreements
• Managing a non-compete agreement dispute
• Advising employees asked to sign a non-compete form

To request a phone consultation with our non-compete agreement lawyers in Boulder, please contact us online using our simple and secure submission form.

Protect Your Business with a Well-Drafted Non-Compete

A well-crafted non-compete agreement can prevent former employees from competing against your business or soliciting your clients after their employment ends. Our attorneys help business owners in Boulder and Northern Colorado draft, review, and enforce agreements that comply with Colorado law.

Key elements of a strong non-compete agreement include:

• Clear, specific language outlining prohibited activities
• Reasonable duration and geographic scope
• Protection of legitimate business interests
• Fair consideration for the employee
• Enforceability under Colorado law

Are Non-Compete Agreements Enforceable in Colorado?

Non-competes are enforceable in Colorado in certain circumstances. Enforceability turns on the type of employee signing the agreement and whether the agreement is necessary to protect trade secrets, is connected to the sale of a business, or qualifies under another statutory exception.

Under prior Colorado case law, an employer could require an employee to sign a non-compete as a condition of continued employment, with courts holding that no additional consideration beyond continued employment was required. For agreements entered into on or after August 10, 2022, HB 22-1317 introduced new requirements that affect what constitutes valid consideration. A Colorado employer may generally fire an at-will employee for refusing to sign a non-compete, though specific circumstances vary.

How HB 22-1317 Changed Colorado Non-Compete Law

Colorado significantly overhauled C.R.S. § 8-2-113 through HB 22-1317, effective August 10, 2022. The new framework applies to all restrictive covenants entered into or renewed on or after that date. Agreements signed before August 10, 2022, remain governed by prior law unless subsequently renewed.

Income Thresholds & Salary Requirements

The most consequential change is a shift to income-based eligibility. A non-compete is permissible only when the employee earns at or above the highly compensated employee (HCE) threshold, a salary floor set by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) and adjusted each January 1 through the PAY CALC Order. The threshold must be met both at the time of signing and at the time of enforcement. Because this number changes each year, confirm the current threshold directly with the CDLE before relying on any figure. Customer non-solicitation agreements carry a lower income floor, currently 60% of the HCE threshold, and must also be tied to trade secret protection.

Notice Requirements & Venue Rules

The statute introduced two procedural requirements employers can’t afford to overlook. First, advance written notice: a prospective employee must receive notice of the non-compete before accepting an offer of employment, and an existing employee must receive at least 14 days’ notice before the agreement takes effect. Failure to provide timely notice independently voids the covenant, regardless of its other terms. Second, venue: any dispute involving a non-compete or non-solicitation agreement for an employee who primarily resided or worked in Colorado at the time of termination must be adjudicated in Colorado. A forum-selection clause designating another state is void and unenforceable against that worker.

Employee Private Right of Action

HB 22-1317 created a private right of action that didn’t exist under prior law. An employer who presents, enters into, or attempts to enforce a void non-compete now faces a statutory penalty of $5,000 per worker or prospective worker, plus actual damages, injunctive relief, and attorney fees. If you have been presented with an agreement that appears to fall outside these boundaries, speaking with a Boulder non-compete lawyer before signing can be worthwhile.

On the federal level, the FTC’s proposed nationwide non-compete ban was vacated by a federal court in August 2024, and the agency has since abandoned the rule. No federal ban is in effect. Colorado’s statute controls for Colorado-based workers.

Physician & Healthcare Provider Non-Compete Ban (SB 25-083)

Colorado went further for healthcare workers. SB 25-083, effective August 6, 2025, voids non-compete covenants and customer non-solicitation agreements for physicians (including physician assistants), advanced practice registered nurses, certified midwives, and dentists. This applies regardless of income or any trade-secret rationale, for agreements entered into or renewed on or after August 6, 2025. Covenants already in place before that date aren’t retroactively voided, but any new or renewed agreement for a covered provider is unenforceable. Our firm has represented medical practices and individual physicians navigating Colorado’s non-compete rules for years and can advise on how this change affects existing arrangements.

Non-Compete Cases We Have Handled

Patricia S. Bellac Law Firm has handled non-compete matters on behalf of both employees and employers across a range of industries. The following are representative examples:

• A Colorado-based wind turbine engineer left his employment to join a competing company that also performed service and maintenance of wind turbines. He had signed a non-compete prohibiting him from working for a competing business. Before his departure, we analyzed whether the agreement was enforceable, considering, among other things, the employee’s relative rank in the company (whether he was an executive, managerial employee, or professional staff to such an employee) and whether he had acquired trade secrets while working for the first employer. We concluded that the non-compete was likely unenforceable under Colorado law. The employee shared our analysis with his prospective employer, which then hired him.
• We have represented several medical practices and individual physicians, helping both navigate the intricacies of Colorado’s rules and narrow exceptions regarding physician non-competition agreements.
• A director-level sales manager sought to leave his employer of 27 years. This employee was sufficiently senior to be bound by a non-compete pursuant to C.R.S. 8-2-113(2)(d); however, all of his experience and contacts were in a niche segment of one industry, so he believed he was only employable in that segment. When asked to sign a new, enhanced non-compete, we helped him negotiate revised terms restricting his competition to the largest direct competitors. When he found a new employer willing to hire him, that employer’s attorney contacted our firm to discuss the limitations and evaluate whether the new employment would violate the agreement. Because the new employer was not among the expressly named competitors, and based on the negotiating history of the revised provisions, the employee accepted the new position and faced no subsequent legal challenge.
• An employee signed a non-compete while at one division of a company, was then promoted to a different position, and later resigned. We successfully defended her against a claim that she had violated her non-compete, arguing the agreement was void ab initio because she could not be lawfully bound at the time of signing. The company’s failure to present a new non-compete following her promotion defeated its claim.

Have a non-compete question? Please contact us online using our simple and secure submission form.

Confidentiality, Non-Solicitation, & Non-Disclosure Agreements: What’s the Difference?

Non-compete agreements go by several names: confidentiality agreements, non-solicitation agreements, and non-disclosure agreements, and all may be enforceable subject to Colorado statutes. The label matters less than the substance.

An employer can’t circumvent the Colorado non-compete statute simply by renaming an agreement a “non-solicitation” agreement. If the employer doesn’t have the power to enforce a non-compete against an employee, it won’t be permitted to enforce a non-solicitation agreement against that employee either (Phoenix Capital, Inc. v. Dowell, 176 P3d 835 (Colo. App. 2007), cert. denied (2008)).

Enforceability is determined based on the employee’s position at the time of signing (Phoenix Capital, supra). A restrictive covenant signed by an employee who wasn’t covered by a statutory exception at the time of signing is void ab initio and can’t be revived by a subsequent promotion. The employee must sign a new non-compete at the time of promotion for any agreement to be valid (Id.).

When Are Non-Compete Agreements Not Enforceable in Colorado?

Under Colorado law, a covenant not to compete is valid only in limited circumstances. For agreements signed on or after August 10, 2022, the executive-and-management exception has been restructured into the income-threshold framework described above. The categories below continue to govern agreements signed before that date and remain relevant to the trade-secret and sale-of-business analyses under both frameworks.

Under C.R.S. § 8-2-113, non-competes are unenforceable except in the following circumstances:

• Sale of a Business: Non-competes in connection with the sale of a business are enforceable based on value received.
• Trade Secrets: A trade secret must be both “secret” and of value. Courts consider the following factors when determining whether a covenant is necessary to protect trade secrets:
  • Whether the company took measures to obtain or develop the information
  • The company’s interest in keeping the information secret and what steps it took to do so
  • The information’s relationship and value to the business
  • Whether the information is publicly available or can be “reverse-engineered”
• Recovery of Training Expenses: An employer may recover reasonable training costs if the employee leaves within two years of completing the training, with recovery decreasing proportionately over that period.
• Executive and Management Employees and Their Professional Staff: An employee who is a manager or higher and has at least some autonomous decision-making power may fall within this exception. High-level support staff for executives may also qualify based on their access to confidential information.

Even when a non-compete qualifies for one of these exceptions, it is enforceable only if reasonable in duration, geographic scope, and breadth of prohibited activities.

Colorado courts have the power to “blue pencil” a non-competition agreement. That means severing unenforceable provisions and enforcing the rest, or otherwise reforming the agreement. In practice, however, Colorado courts have historically declined to reform overbroad agreements and instead voided them entirely.

Do you need assistance with Colorado non-compete law? Please contact us online using our simple and secure submission form.

How Colorado Courts Evaluate Whether a Non-Compete Is Reasonable

Even a non-compete that falls within a statutory exception is enforceable only if it passes a reasonableness test. Courts examine three factors: duration, geographic scope, and breadth of prohibited activities.

Duration

The duration of a non-compete should be no longer than necessary to protect against unfair competition. Colorado courts have enforced agreements of up to five years, but in fast-changing fields, such as data management, digital marketing, and biotechnology, an agreement exceeding two years may be held overbroad because any trade secrets the former employee carried would likely be in the public domain or obsolete within one or two years.

Geographic Scope

Reasonableness of geographic scope is measured against the actual business activities of the company and the former employee. A company with a national clientele may reasonably restrict competition anywhere in the country; a restriction that bars a former worker from working outside the company’s area of operation is likely unreasonable. A worldwide restriction may be justified when necessary to protect legitimate business interests. Conversely, preventing an employee from working in a region where she never actually operated for the company may also be unreasonable.

Breadth of Prohibited Activities

A former employer can only restrict activities that relate to the employee’s actual work at the company and the information that employee took away. Restrictions sweeping in all competing activities, regardless of whether they connect to what the employee actually did, are likely to fail.

Serving Boulder & Northern Colorado Since 1999

Patricia S. Bellac Law Firm has been representing individual and business clients in complex employment law matters since 1999. If you need assistance with a non-compete or confidentiality agreement, we can walk you through your options and develop a strategy to protect your rights.

We represent:

• Individuals and employees
• Entrepreneurs and small business owners
• Corporations and other entities
• Clients throughout Boulder and Northern Colorado

We offer complimentary phone consultations for all new and prospective clients. During that call, we can answer your questions and give you clear guidance on your rights and options under Colorado non-compete law.

To schedule your complimentary consultation, contact us online.