Avoiding being sued for stealing cliients

(California) I'm starting a new service company that will be competing directly with my former employer in a small town. I have a very specific mailing list in hand, and of course I recognize some of the names on it, and recognize the addresses of those people as current. I received legal advice telling me to use direct mail, so as not to appear to be soliciting specific clients that I used to work with, as they are under (month-to-month) contract with my former employer. The attorney advised that I add a small legal notice or disclaimer on my direct mail piece, but I cannot remember the wording that was suggested. It was something to the effect of "This is an advertisement not a solicitation." Does anybody have any suggestions for copy I can use? Other people who will receive the direct mail piece will likely be under similar contracts with other competitors. I don't feel at risk of targeting them because I have no way of knowing if they are with any of my competitors or not. However, in the case of my employer's former clients, I do recognize their names. Do I have a duty not to send the advertisement to them? Thanks!

Call the lawyer back...and discuss. But your disclaimer you listed is partially helpful...make sure you do not use former company lists.

Thanks for the reply. Do you have any suggested verbiage I can use for the disclaimer? You seem to completely understand what I am facing. The list I got was from a list supplier and is not a list I took from my former employer.

[Barkri12]

A client of mine - the president of a mid-size company - was recently asked to sign a noncompete agreement as part of a business sale. "Should I sign it," he asked me over drinks at a recent conference we both attended. "And what if I don't," he added.

"Do you have a good lawyer? "I said.

What does a noncompete mean and what does it cover? And what do you need to know about a nonsolicitation agreement?

When the economy is booming and top talent is hard to find, lots of companies take them away because having them would make it difficult to attract people. But just like marriage and prenuptial agreements - for better or worse and 'til death do us part - noncompetes are here to stay.

I'm the original question asker. I signed nothing with my former employer. Furthermore, I have read numerous articles from numerous sources and they all say that non-competes are virtually unenforceable in California. That is probably why I was not asked to sign one in the first place.