Houston business owners use non-compete agreements for many reasons. A non-compete agreement can restrict employees from leaving your business and using their confidential information and insider knowledge to compete against you by working for competitors or opening their own business in the same field. If you are a Houston business owner and want to start using non-compete agreements in your business, it is important to know the legal scope of these agreements in Texas. Certain provisions or language could make all or part of your non-compete agreement illegal and therefore unenforceable. Tex ..read more

Click here to learn more about how this may affect employers and employees. The post FTC Announces their position banning Non-Compete Agreements. first appeared on Patterson PC ..read more

Sam Alam v Andrew Gomes, MD, Mahendra Agraharkar, MD, et al.; Cause No. 2017- 43835; In the District Court of Harris County, Texas 165th Judicial District. Patterson PC is pleased to announce the unanimous jury trial verdict in our client’s favor. Drisonline.com and Sam Alam sued Defendants, Andrew Gomes, M.D., Mahendra Agraharkar, MD, Ajay Choudry, MD, National Interventional Radiology Partners, PLLC, NIRP Management, LLC, NIRP Pasadena, PLLC, and NIRP Sugar Land, PLLC in what is often referred to as a shotgun petition.  Patterson’s trial team, including Pete, Nicole Thornton, Denise Kim ..read more

A non-compete agreement can be a powerful way to protect your business and its trade secrets. Here, your employee signs a contractual arrangement whereby they agree not to go to work for competitors within a specified geographical region for a specified period of time. This ensures that even if your employee leaves you, they won’t simply go to your biggest competitor and share everything that they know about your business, including confidential information. Yet, non-compete agreements are breached all the time. When they are, you need to be prepared to take action to protect your interests. I ..read more

Attorney Pete Patterson, the managing partner at Patterson PC, has been selected, for the 17th year, to the 2023 Texas Super Lawyers list. Furthermore, for the 5th consecutive year, Attorney Patterson has been nominated to the Houston Super Lawyers: Top 100 list. Each year, no more than five percent of the lawyers in the state are selected by the research team at Super Lawyers to receive this honor. Super Lawyers, part of Thomson Reuters, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement ..read more

  Attorney Pete Patterson, the managing partner at Patterson PC, was recently included in the 30th edition of The Best Lawyers in America® for Litigation – Banking and Finance. Best Lawyers is widely regarded by both clients and legal professionals as a significant honor, conferred on a lawyer by their peers. Recognition is based entirely on peer review and is compiled by conducting exhaustive surveys in which leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. He received his undergraduate degree at the University of Texas at Austin, and earned a J.D. from the University of ..read more

I am humbled to be awarded the Lifetime Lars Langerud Award from The Entrepreneurs’ Organization. This is the first such award by the Houston Chapter. I enjoyed speaking to the membership of more than 200 strong with my wife and son in attendance.The post Pete Patterson Win’s EO Lifetime Award. A first for EO Houston. first appeared on Patterson PC ..read more

The obligations involved with running a business can be immense. But owners aren’t the only one who has responsibilities to fulfill. Depending on the structure of the business at hand, there may be several other individuals who need to fulfill their duties in order to make the business run smoothly and protect its financial interests. Some individuals who work for a business may carry a fiduciary duty. These individuals are tasked with putting the interests of the business first, which might sound simple enough. However, there are problems with the fiduciary duty all the time, which can put a ..read more

Many Texas businesses require employees to sign noncompete agreements. Both parties often have questions about the legalities of these agreements, and when and how these agreements can be enforced if there is an alleged violation. We hope this post will provide some insight into those issues. Are non-compete agreements legal in Texas? Yes. Businesses can use non-compete agreements. However, in order for these agreements to be legally valid and enforceable, they have to meet certain criteria. This includes showing that the agreement was tailored in a way that did not restrict the employee any m ..read more

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE             NALA – The Paralegal Association is pleased to announce that Jennifer Armendariz has successfully completed the Certified Paralegal examination and is now entitled to use of the CP professional credential.  Jennifer Armendariz is among the 3,499 paralegals in the State of Texas and nearly 21,000 paralegals nationwide who have attained this goal.             Mrs. Armendariz is Senior Paralegal and assistant to the Managing Partner at Patterson, PC ..read more