Pennsylvania does not publish a statutory notice ladder for an individual employee. A counsel who resigns owes the notice written in the employment agreement, the offer letter, or the bonus plan that conditions a payout on a garden period. Where the papers are silent, at-will employment means either side can end the relationship without a statutory week-count. The start date is built from the clause the candidate actually signed at the current employer. That is why an 11-week median to an accepted offer, on the firm general counsel clock and on the Philadelphia in-house envelope, is not the date the person can advise in Pittsburgh.
The Wage Payment and Collection Law is the statute that does have a clock, and the clock is pay, not tenure. Section 5, 43 P.S. section 260.5, as amended 14 July 1977, says that when an employer separates an employee, or the employee quits or resigns, earned wages are due not later than the next regular payday on which those wages would otherwise have been paid. If the employee asks, payment goes by certified mail. The same next-payday rule covers a firing and a resignation. A general counsel who tells a candidate that Pennsylvania requires two weeks is reciting custom. The statute requires the next payday.
Restrictive covenants are a second trap, and they split by who is signing. For a lawyer, a covenant that is ancillary to employment still needs consideration and a reasonable limit on time, geography, and activity. Socko v. Mid-Atlantic Systems of CPA, Inc., decided by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2015, holds that when the covenant is presented after employment has begun, continued at-will employment is not adequate consideration. A raise, a bonus, a promotion, or another new benefit has to be in the paper. A noncompete handed to a sitting deputy on the day of a title change, with no new consideration, is the covenant Socko puts in doubt.
Health-system employers run a second statute on the same campus. The Fair Contracting for Health Care Practitioners Act, Act 74 of 2024, was enacted on 17 July 2024 and took effect on 1 January 2025. It is a statute about health care practitioners. It does not mention lawyers. A Pittsburgh health-system general counsel who copies a practitioner noncompete into the deputy general counsel's offer has used the wrong act. The lawyer's paper is Socko and the reasonableness cases. The practitioner's paper is Act 74.
Licensing is the clock that moves a file after the economics are settled. Pa.B.A.R. 302, adopted 30 March 2004 and effective 180 days later, requires every attorney who is not a member of the Pennsylvania bar, and who performs legal services in the Commonwealth for a corporation or other non-governmental business on more than a temporary basis, or who maintains an office or other systematic and continuous presence, to hold a Limited In-House Corporate Counsel License. The applicant must be on active status in another United States jurisdiction, hold a law degree, and file a statement from an officer, director, or general counsel of the employer. Scope is advice to that employer's directors, officers, employees, and agents on the business, negotiating and documenting its matters, and agency appearances when the agency allows them. The lawyer may not appear in a Pennsylvania court without pro hac vice, may not advise employees on personal matters, and may not advise third parties or the public. Approved pro bono under the rule is a separate permission. It does not widen the employer's docket.
The license expires when the lawyer leaves the named employer. Rule 302(e)(5) gives a narrow bridge. If, within 30 days of leaving, the lawyer joins another Pennsylvania employer and will perform legal services for that employer, the lawyer may apply for a new certificate by filing, within 30 days of the new start, a statement of the new employer and the dates the old job ended and the new job began, plus the new employer papers the rule requires. A candidate who treats the limited license as a personal credential that travels with the person has misread the rule.
A full Pennsylvania admission is a different gate, and Rule 302 does not supply it. A City law-department seat, a county solicitor seat, or any chair that must appear in the Court of Common Pleas needs a member of the Pennsylvania bar, or a pro hac vice admission for a particular case. The statewide count of people on the limited in-house status was 420 in the 2025 Annual Report. That is the whole Commonwealth. It is the pool a Pittsburgh employer is adding to when it sponsors a new application. It is not the 8,688 active attorneys located in Allegheny County, and the two numbers are not added together.
