New Opportunity For Hands On Experience But Must Sign Disclosure Agreements

[Rangermac2]

For context, I am about to graduate from high school in the next few months to start the Mechanical Engineering Program at my University. Back in August I met with a man and had dinner with him who owns a business which is Engineering oriented in Research and Development. The dinner was to learn more about my future options and directions but he had offered me a job. Earlier this morning I was able to go to his business and meet everyone he works with and learn some responsibilities that I would be working through when I am working for him. He is offering to pay me and I am looking to see if I can do some work without a financial incentive for service hours since it is an official company. He asked me today if I had signed his Non-Disclosure Agreement which I said I had not. It is professionally written and I do not want to mistakenly sign this document which could negatively impact my future as an Inventor, Entrepreneur, and Investor in the future.

What type of lawyer would be best to go to where I can have this NDA professionally assessed and understood so I do not jeopardize my future or infringe on my rights?

 

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[LateStarter]

For context, I am about to graduate from high school in the next few months to start the Mechanical Engineering Program at my University. Back in August I met with a man and had dinner with him who owns a business which is Engineering oriented in Research and Development. The dinner was to learn more about my future options and directions but he had offered me a job. Earlier this morning I was able to go to his business and meet everyone he works with and learn some responsibilities that I would be working through when I am working for him. He is offering to pay me and I am looking to see if I can do some work without a financial incentive for service hours since it is an official company. He asked me today if I had signed his Non-Disclosure Agreement which I said I had not. It is professionally written and I do not want to mistakenly sign this document which could negatively impact my future as an Inventor, Entrepreneur, and Investor in the future.

What type of lawyer would be best to go to where I can have this NDA professionally assessed and understood so I do not jeopardize my future or infringe on my rights?

*I'm not a lawyer* A contract lawyer would be able to help you with this.

Most NDA's have General Restrictions around use of disclosed information. Confidential information disclosed will need to be returned or destroyed when the NDA terminates (should have a term and termination clause) and cannot be used (likely in perpetuity) for the areas outlined in the restrictions. This should all be part of the NDA.

Realistically, unless you're directly using proprietary knowledge you gained from this company and competing against them or aiding their competitors, it's not that enforceable. There has to be monetary damages to the company that is disclosing the information. Your future ideas are a blend of all knowledge you've gathered from all sources in your life and it is often difficult to prove what is a result of direct disclosure or derived from acquired knowledge.

 

[AmazingLarry]

Also not a lawyer, but one thing to look out for is ownership of IP. I'm a mechanical engineer also and worked for an aerospace company in the past. My employment contract basically stated that the company would own any IP that I come up with regardless of what it is. I'm sure if I invented something completely unrelated like a new type of sock, they wouldn't want ownership and would let me use it.

 

[Hong_Kong]

Also not a lawyer, but one thing to look out for is ownership of IP. I'm a mechanical engineer also and worked for an aerospace company in the past. My employment contract basically stated that the company would own any IP that I come up with regardless of what it is. I'm sure if I invented something completely unrelated like a new type of sock, they wouldn't want ownership and would let me use it.

They make your sign these but they usually aren't totally enforceable. If you come up with your own idea, using your own equipment on your own time the IP waiver doesn't cover it. If you use company time and equipment to come up with something, they own it.
Certain places are also getting rid of non-competes and making them unenforceable which is great for us as well.

For example somewhere I do business just totally made all non-competes unenforceable recently.

 

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