Executive Employment and Non-Compete Recruiters

An executive employment and non-compete recruiter is hired when the document is an executive agreement: the offer, the cause definition, the notice or garden-leave period, the severance, the release, and the restrictive covenants that sit in the same signature block. The parent practice is employment and labor recruitment. Equity plans, deferred compensation, clawbacks, and proxy disclosure are executive compensation. Charges, investigations, and trials under the discrimination statutes are discrimination. Plan documents are employee benefits. Collective-bargaining agreements are collective bargaining. This page is the individual executive agreement and the covenant in it.

The Federal Trade Commission published the Non-Compete Clause Rule on May 7, 2024, at 89 FR 38342. The Federal Register notice of February 12, 2026 (document 2026-02866) describes what that rule would have done. Entering a non-compete with a worker on or after September 4, 2024 would have been an unfair method of competition under section 5 of the FTC Act. For non-competes already signed before September 4, 2024, the rule treated senior executives differently from other workers: existing non-competes with senior executives could remain in force, and existing non-competes with other workers would not have been enforceable after September 4, 2024. That text is a description of a rule that is no longer in the Code of Federal Regulations. A hiring brief that still sorts candidates by the senior-executive carve-out is sorting on a distinction the Commission has removed from 16 CFR part 910.

The same February 12, 2026 notice records how the rule left the books. Federal district courts in three jurisdictions issued opinions. In one, the court denied a preliminary injunction: ATS Tree Services, LLC v. FTC, No. CV 24-1743, 2024 WL 3511630 (E.D. Pa. July 23, 2024). In another, the court entered a preliminary injunction limited to the plaintiff: Properties of the Villages, Inc. v. FTC, No. 5:24-cv-316-TJC-PRL, 2024 WL 3870380 (M.D. Fla. August 15, 2024). In the third, the court held the rule unlawful and set it aside: Ryan, LLC v. FTC, 746 F. Supp. 3d 369 (N.D. Tex. 2024). The notice quotes the set-aside: the court concluded that the FTC promulgated the rule in excess of its statutory authority and that the rule was arbitrary and capricious, and held that it must hold the rule unlawful and set it aside under section 706(2) of the Administrative Procedure Act.

On September 5, 2025 the Commission voted 3-1 to dismiss its appeals in Ryan, LLC v. FTC, No. 24-10951 (5th Cir.), and Properties of the Villages v. FTC, No. 24-13102 (11th Cir.), and to accede to vacatur of the rule. The Commission's press release of that date is the source the Federal Register cites. The Fifth Circuit clerk then dismissed the Ryan appeal as of September 8, 2025, under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 42(b), on the appellant's motion. With the appeals gone, the February 12, 2026 final rule removed and reserved 16 CFR part 910, effective on publication. The notice calls that removal a ministerial conforming step. It is the date a national ban stopped being a document a counsel could cite as a regulation in force.

The National Labor Relations Board's prosecutorial memos moved on a different calendar. On February 14, 2025, Acting General Counsel William B. Cowen issued memorandum GC 25-05. The Board's news release of that day states that the rescinded memoranda include GC 23-08 and GC 25-01 on non-compete agreements. GC 25-05 is a General Counsel memorandum to the regions. A specification that still treats GC 23-08 or GC 25-01 as current prosecutorial policy is citing a memorandum the Acting General Counsel rescinded on February 14, 2025.

What remains is state law, and the states that changed it in 2025 and 2026 did so in opposite directions. Washington's Department of Labor and Industries, in WSR 25-20-099 filed September 30, 2025, set the 2026 employee non-compete earnings threshold under RCW 49.62.020 at $126,858.83, and the independent-contractor threshold under RCW 49.62.030 at $317,147.09. The department's non-compete page prints the same 2026 figures. Those thresholds are the enforceability line for agreements that are still judged under the earnings test. Chapter 149, Laws of 2026, then ends that test. The act, ESHB 1155, passed the Senate on March 5, 2026, passed the House on March 9, 2026, was approved on March 23, 2026, and was filed on March 24, 2026. It takes effect June 30, 2027. From that date, RCW 49.62.020 provides that all noncompetition covenants are void and unenforceable regardless of when the parties entered them. By October 1, 2027 an employer must make reasonable efforts to give written notice to current and former employees and independent contractors whose covenant is still inside its term, stating that the covenant is void. The act also repeals the annual dollar adjustment in RCW 49.62.040, effective the same day. A Seattle employment counsel hired in 2026 owns both clocks: the $126,858.83 line while it lasts, and a voiding statute with a notice project dated October 1, 2027.

Florida went the other way. Chapter 2025-213 creates the Contracts Honoring Opportunity, Investment, Confidentiality, and Economic Growth Act, the CHOICE Act, codified from section 542.41. Section 22 of the enrolled act says it takes effect July 1, 2025. The act became law without the Governor's signature on July 3, 2025. The Florida Senate's codified note on section 542.41 states that the constitutional effective date in that situation is August 15, 2025. A brief that cites only one of those three dates is incomplete. The operative definitions are in section 542.43. A covered garden leave agreement is up to, and no more than, four years of advance notice. A covered noncompete agreement is a post-employment restriction for a period not to exceed four years, inside the geographic area the agreement defines. A covered employee is a person who earns, or is reasonably expected to earn, a salary greater than twice the annual mean wage of the relevant Florida county. Section 542.43 defines that annual mean wage by reference to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics figure for all occupations in the state, and it excludes a health care practitioner as defined in section 456.001. Salary, in the same section, is annualized base compensation. It includes a base wage, a salary, a professional fee, or other compensation for personal services, and the fair market value of any non-cash benefit. It excludes health care benefits, severance pay, retirement benefits, expense reimbursement, discretionary incentives or awards, and anticipated but indeterminable compensation, including tips, bonuses, and commissions.

That salary definition changes who the Florida statute actually covers. An executive whose cash is mostly bonus can sit under "twice the annual mean wage" on salary alone and outside the covered-employee definition, while a colleague with a higher base and a smaller bonus sits inside it. The lawyer who prices the covenant off total cash is reading a number the statute tells the reader to leave out. Section 542.44 adds the garden-leave mechanics: after the first 90 days of the notice period the covered employee does not have to provide services; the employee may engage in nonwork activities during the remainder, including during business hours; work for another employer during the remainder requires the covered employer's permission; and the employer may shorten the notice with at least 30 days' written notice. The proposed agreement must be given at least seven days before the offer expires. On an employer's application, a court must preliminarily enjoin the employee from providing services to anyone else during the notice period, and must preliminarily enjoin the new business from engaging the employee. The injunction yields only on clear and convincing evidence, on the grounds the section lists. The prevailing party is entitled to reasonable attorney fees and costs. Section 542.45 repeats the seven-day notice for a covered noncompete, requires the noncompete period to be reduced day-for-day by any nonworking portion of a garden-leave notice, and again requires a preliminary injunction, with a three-year lookback for similar services.

Sartori & Partners' market map is 1,480,000+ lawyers. This page does not publish a separate headcount of executive-employment lawyers. The demand case is the removal of 16 CFR part 910 on February 12, 2026, the Washington earnings line of $126,858.83 for 2026 and the voiding date of June 30, 2027, and Florida's four-year covered noncompete in chapter 2025-213. A search that still says "employment lawyer, any docket" will return a discrimination litigator for a covenant file.

Operating companies hire the counsel who lives in the agreement. The work is the annual form, the one-off negotiation with a chief executive or a head of sales, the separation when that person leaves, and the decision to sue or to stand down. The seat reports to the general counsel and sits next to human resources. It is an in-house search, run as in-house counsel recruiting. Of Sartori & Partners' 9 searches from January 2022 through September 2026, 6 were this kind of seat. 4 of those 6 were companies that already had an employment counsel or a deputy general counsel. The incoming lawyer joined a desk that already owned the form.

The first employment-counsel seat is the other in-house pattern. The general counsel has been marking up covenants between financings, investigations, and board meetings. The trigger is a statute with a date, a departure that went badly, or a board that wants the agreement off the general counsel's desk. 2 of the 6 in-house searches were that first seat. In 2025 a Nasdaq-listed medtech in Boston was one of them. The shortlist was delivered on day 16. The accepted offer was in week 12. The published employment market for that city is Boston. The dollar line on a Washington threshold and the four-year cap in Florida are statutes. They are not a description of that company.

Private-equity-backed companies hire when the management agreement is a closing document. Notice, severance, and the covenant are negotiated with the rollover, often against a form the fund has used in other states. Florida's covered-employee test and Washington's June 30, 2027 voiding date both hit that form. The lawyer who has only done the purchase agreement has not done this schedule. The lawyer who has only done a public-company executive agreement may not have done a rollover. The brief should say which document is open. Portfolio-company general counsel searches, as a category, are a different product from this counsel seat. The fee terms below follow the seat, not the sponsor's letterhead.

Law firms hire two different laterals and often use one title for both. The counseling partner or counsel drafts the form, the state addendum, and the seven-day Florida notice. The litigator files the preliminary injunction sections 542.44 and 542.45 require, or defends it, and tries the trade-secret claim that is pleaded with the covenant. Of the 3 law-firm searches in the 9, 2 were partners and 1 was counsel. Partner moves are run as lateral partner recruiting. Counsel and associate depth is associate recruiting. A portable book of wage-and-hour class actions is a different book, on wage and hour.

Multi-state employers hire when one executive population crosses the statutes. A chief commercial officer who lives in Florida, manages a team in Washington, and has a form chosen under another state's law is three analyses. The CHOICE Act can apply because of a primary place of work in Florida, or because the employer's principal place of business is in Florida and the agreement chooses Florida law. Washington's voiding statute reaches covenants that are still in their term on June 30, 2027, including covenants signed earlier. The counsel who knows one of those statutes and cites it nationally will mis-state the other. The published employment pages for the markets where this work concentrates include Miami, Seattle, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington.

The mis-specified brief has a repeating shape. 3 of the 9 arrived written as a discrimination-litigation hire and were rewritten as executive-agreement counsel before anyone was approached. The Boston search was one of those 3. The general counsel described Title VII, investigations, and agency charges, then handed over a draft whose first duty was the executive agreement and the covenant. The person who can do the job has spent the recent years on those documents. Approaching a trial partner for that specification spends the first fortnight on the wrong list.

Sartori & Partners closed 9 executive-employment and non-compete searches from January 2022 through September 2026. The 6 in-house searches sit inside the 400+ placements since 2017 (230+ in-house). The 3 law-firm searches are laterals and are counted with partner and counsel moves. The split of those 9 — 4 existing desks, 2 first seats, 2 partners, and 1 counsel — is set out with the seats above.

Across those 9, the median time to a first shortlist was 20 days, and the median time to an accepted offer was 13 weeks. General counsel and chief legal officer searches reach a shortlist in 24 days and an accepted offer in a median of 11 weeks. Senior counsel searches reach a shortlist in 18 days and an accepted offer in a median of 8 weeks. The 20 days and the 13 weeks are the medians on this seat only. Thirteen weeks is slower than the senior-counsel median of 8 weeks.

In 2025 a Nasdaq-listed medtech in Boston hired its first employment counsel. The shortlist was delivered on day 16. The accepted offer was in week 12. Day 16 is inside the 20-day median. Week 12 is inside the 13-week median and slower than the 8-week senior-counsel median. The search is one of the 2 first seats, one of the 6 in-house searches, and one of the 9.

A general counsel at a Nasdaq-listed medtech in Boston told us, The shortlist had lawyers who had negotiated a chief executive separation and a non-compete.

3 of the 9 arrived written as a discrimination-litigation hire and were rewritten as executive-agreement counsel before anyone was approached. The Boston search was one of those 3. The symptom is consistent. The hiring manager describes investigations and trials, then hands over a draft whose first duty is the agreement, the notice, and the covenant. The person who can do the job has spent the recent years on those clauses, in the states where the executives actually work.

An interim counsel for a single separation is a different product. Sartori & Partners has delivered 60+ interim and fractional engagements since 2017, counted separately from the 230+, with a median of 7 days from first call to start. That engagement is not one of the 9 retained searches. The retained fee terms above do not apply to a day-rate cover. The client's legal department stays off limits for 24 months after a mandate.