Show Notes

Kayla: Welcome back to the Designer Practice Podcast and I’m your host Kayla Das.

Have you ever applied to a contract job as a therapist for a group practice to only be greeted with a contract that says you are not allowed to compete against this company? Maybe you’ve even been told that in order to be hired as a contractor, you have to scrap your private practice altogether.

This certainly happened for me. When I first started my private practice, I interviewed for seven contract jobs and only one didn’t ask me to sign a non-competition clause. And to top it off, one of the six that asked me to sign a non-competition clause told me in order to work for them as a contractor, I would have to seize my private practice altogether and that I would not be allowed to restart my private practice for up to two years after I stopped working for them. Needless to say, I turned this offer down.

Because growing my own business was the top of my priority, I knew the minute I heard the word non-competition clause, I was not accepting any offer from a company. But I did wonder to myself, “Is this even legal?”

Whether you’re a therapist who’s planning to obtain contracts to support your private practice growth, or you’re a group practice owner who’s currently using these clauses in your current contracts, you’re going to want to listen to this episode because today I have Corinne Boudreau, a Nova Scotia lawyer and owner of Online Legal Essentials with me to discuss the differences between non-competition and non-solicitation clauses and when these clauses are enforceable in contracts and also when they’re not.

Hi, Corinne. Welcome to the show. This episode has been so long sought after and I’m so excited that you are here today so that you can bust some of these myths for us and also share some truths when it comes to non-competition and non-solicitation clauses within hiring contracts for therapists.

Corinne: Well, thanks so much for having me. And thank you for your persistence. I try not to make people chase me, but we were kind of going back and forth on having me come and talk about this. So, thanks for your persistence. And I’m very happy to discuss this, definitely questions that I get very often too.

Kayla: Yeah. And Corinne, something that I’ve noticed, especially in the private practice world, is the use of non-competition and non-solicitation clauses within contracts. However, there seems to be an almost a misunderstanding of the two and how they differ from one another. So, I can’t wait for us to dig into these a little further so that you can help us really understand these, especially if we’re either signing these contracts as a contractor, or we’re a therapist or a group practice that are actually hiring therapists into our private practice.

Introduction

But before we do, please introduce yourself where you’re from and tell us a little bit about what you do.

Corinne: Well, thanks for that. Yeah, my name is Corinne Boudreaux. I originally was born and raised in Cape Breton. I’m not a mainlander. I feel like I have to say this, even though I now live in Halifax. So, I’ve always lived on the east coast, although I’ve done lots of traveling.

My background is I did a business degree so I thought I wanted to be an entrepreneur but back– I’m going to date myself here. Back in the eighties and early nineties, when I was studying business, there really wasn’t as much talk about entrepreneurship. So, when I couldn’t figure out how to invent Velcro or something really super cool like that, I thought, “Oh, what else can I do?” There have been a few lawyers in my family. So, I ended up going to law school.

Started my law practice at a big firm. But after a number of years and a couple of kids realized that big law firm life was not for me. Great background, great training, had some really amazing clients, got to learn from some amazing people, but I really had what I now call my soul-sucking situation, which I know a lot of entrepreneurs and people who’ve gone out on their own have experienced, where you just feel like you’re a square peg in a round hole. So back about 10 years ago now, I decided to start my own law practice and then started teaching. I got a call from somebody saying, “I’m always getting legal questions.” They were a business advisor at a local entrepreneurship center. “I’m always getting legal questions. We have some funding to do training. Could you put together a legal course?” So that’s kind of where it started for me down this other path of teaching entrepreneurs and self-employed people and freelancers, what I call the legal essentials. Because I think it’s something that it’s not taught in school. It’s often not included in other programs.

I actually used to teach fourth-year dental students business law. I think that the dental program was actually at Dalhousie University. It was actually forward thinking and starting to put more legal content. So, I think some places it’s starting to show up. But that’s really my passion now is helping Canadian entrepreneurs and business owners and freelancers to understand what the legal foundations are. And put it in hopefully more accessible language. I’ve tried to go from being like talking like a lawyer robot to talking more like a human being slash entrepreneur person. So that’s a little bit about my journey.

Kayla: Yeah. And something you mentioned there, you said a lot of us don’t have this in our schools and training, and especially when I think of therapists and coaches, it’s not only is it not in our training. It’s something that’s misunderstood, and especially where it comes, usually having to hire a lawyer and asking these questions can cost a lot of money, or we anticipate it’s going to cost a lot of money, that we just don’t do it and that could definitely open ourselves up to potential issues down the road because a simple question could be answered. Which is why I’m really glad that you’re here today because non-competition and non-solicitation clauses come up over and over again. But it’s difficult to know who do I reach out to or how do I reach out to people or how do I find the right information to be able to deal with this?

Defining Non-Competition and Non-Solicitation

So, let’s dig in. What is a non-competition clause and what is a non-solicitation clause and how do they differ from one another?

Corinne: Sure. I’m going to talk a little bit about how they’re the same and then maybe how they’re different. They’re both under what I would call an umbrella of things that we call restrictive covenants. So that sounds like a very fancy, jargony, lawyer word. But it really, as you can see, it restricts activities, so both of them have that in common. That they are kind of clause that you put into a contract to say, you can’t do this. And again, there are some other parameters around it, but they are restrictive in nature.

How they differ is:

Non-competition clauses usually restrict activities of a person within a certain time frame, and also within a geographic region. It depends on the context, where they’re put what that looks like. In employment agreements, it usually says, you can’t work in a certain industry or type of job in a certain geographic area for a particular period of time. That’s kind of how it would be written. Similarly, in a contractor agreement or in a purchase and sale agreement, that’s another place that these commonly show up. It would say something like that. So it restricts activities around what people can do during a contract, or even after a contract

A non-solicitation clause again does restrict activities, but it usually talks about slightly different activities. It’s usually talking about contacting patients or clients, contacting staff and suppliers. And so, it’s slightly different types of activities that it restricts. And it often kind of ties back to protecting confidential information. Again, they have a lot of similarities, it’s not weird that they get confused because they have some commonalities, but they have different ways of protecting information and restricting activities.

Are Non-Competition and Non-Solicitation Enforceable?

Kayla: So, are non-competition clauses and non-solicitation clauses enforceable? And if they are, who are they enforceable for? And are there a difference between the enforcement of someone who’s hired as an employee versus someone who’s hired as a contractor?

Corinne: So, I would say, in general, just to go really super high-level, the law is always about balancing interests. So, in this example, it’s like the business that’s hiring someone, we’re trying to balance their interests with the person that’s getting hired.

In general, the law doesn’t like non-competition clauses, only in very specific uses and they have to be very narrow. So, if you were to look in general at non-competition clauses, non-competition clauses are in general, contrary to public policy and generally unenforceable. So, I would say they’re generally unenforceable because they go too far. In terms of balancing, they’re very restrictive.

So particularly in the employment context. So, at the end of 2020, I think it was at the end of 2021, I don’t always remember dates very well. But recently, Ontario actually restricted the use of– just banned them outright in their employment standards legislation. So, they said, “except in very limited circumstances, we are just outlawing them.” Now, that’s legislation.

In Canada, we generally have this thing called the common-law, so you have to read cases to kind of figure out what the laws are. But I would say across the country in the employment context, non-competition clauses are very hard to enforce. In fact, I have never been one to put them in employment contracts. I have just never put them in there because I think telling someone– And this is where I usually take a very practical focus to these things. Putting a clause in there and telling people it’s unlikely to be enforced, what are you even doing? Like, what does that even mean?

So, I’ve started, and I’ve been saying this for years, just don’t put them in employment contracts. Just don’t, they don’t belong in there. Now, when I say that Ontario had a couple of exceptions, they said, except for the C-suite people. So maybe with CEOs, CFOs of very large companies, that might be an exception. They may be in a different category. And the other one was in a purchase and sale transaction. So, we’ll just park that one for a minute. Because I’m going to talk about that one later.

On the other hand. There’s no such restriction on non-competition agreements in contractor agreements under case law. That one is a negotiating point. So when you were talking about in your intro, when you were looking for jobs, people were putting them in. The law hasn’t looked on them as unfavorably in that context, and I think there’s more room for negotiation there. The flavour of employment law is always a little bit different because it comes from a place of trying to protect the interests of employees. Employees have historically been taken advantage of in many ways. That’s why we have employment standards legislation. Contractors were much more now in a knowledge economy and lots of other factors have caused a lot more people now to be self-employed. So, I think we’re still figuring some of that out. So, they’re not banned in that context, but I would still say don’t use them too much. And I would say non-solicitation clauses will get you where you want to go 9 out of 10 times.

Kayla: So, I have a question because when I think of a contractor, I think of someone who is running a business, whether they’re a sole proprietor, freelancer, or a corporation, and they are being contracted to do a business for a specific company. So, in the example of therapists, usually people from their private practice as a sole proprietor they are getting hired to do contract work for another therapist or group practice. Now, typically those contractors are not guaranteed full-time hours, but they are met with a non-competition clause in the sense that you can’t compete, but we can’t guarantee you hours. How does that work when we think of non-competition, specifically?

Corinne: Yeah, well, that’s where I think a lot of the negotiation and balancing has to come in, because the reason that the law doesn’t like non-competition agreements is because it thinks that it restricts people’s activities too much. So, I think if you’re putting a non-competition clause in an agreement, but not guaranteeing any hours, that feels too restrictive to me.

But depending on what the market looks like out there, are there more therapists than jobs? I don’t know. I think sometimes that kind of balances itself out. If again, people really want you to work with them, but you don’t want to accept that kind of clause then maybe they’ll start taking them out.

Purpose of Non-Competition and Non-Solicitation Clauses

Kayla: That’s a really good point. So, when we think about non-competition and non-solicitation clauses, why are they used in hiring contracts? And what are the benefits of these clauses and who are they intended to protect?

Corinne: Well, I think they’re a hundred percent intended to protect the business owner or the business itself. Which I think is legitimate, like as a business owner myself, it’s taken me a long time to build up a business: finding clients, creating content, like there’s a lot that goes into finding the right suppliers. I have affiliates and you have all these relationships and you have all these things that you build up inside your business, which have a value.

So, from a business owner perspective, you don’t want someone to waltz in, take everything that’s valuable, and waltz out the door. I think that’s where it’s coming from, from a business perspective. You want to protect what you’ve built and you don’t want again, valuable business assets, including all kinds of confidential information, business information, trade secrets, client lists, supplier lists, all this stuff walking out the door.

You also don’t want to hire– in the context of a therapist, hires a therapist to come in. And then have them go back to their own practice or start their own practice and have all the clients and your staff even maybe follow them. So that’s kind of the business perspective you’re protecting all of these important business assets that you’ve built. But again, balance, balance, like, how can you do that in the least restrictive way? That still protects.

Balancing the Rights of the Person Being Hired and the Business

Kayla: Yeah, what I’m hearing, it’s really balancing out the rights of the person that you’re hiring versus also protecting your company with that, right? And too restricted on either side could not benefit one or both parties.

Corinne: And I think sometimes people kind of– what’s the expression like cut off their nose, despite their face. If you have too many restrictions in there, maybe you’re not going to get the right people. And maybe they could work part-time in your practice and part-time in another practice, and that will work fine with some other, again, controls in there. But, making things too restrictive, you might be losing great people that you could otherwise work with.

Scenario #1

Kayla: That’s a really great point. Now, I have kind of a scenario that tends to happen for therapists specifically. In my opinion, it seems like a catch-22. So, when it comes to the therapy code of ethics, it’s usually an ethical standard for therapists who are leaving an organization, again, whether they’re an employee or a contractor, to provide at least three referrals to a client so that they have the appropriate continuation of care.

When it comes to the non-solicitation clause specifically, do these three referrals have to be within that existing company? And what if the organization doesn’t have additional therapists with the expertise that the clients need for that best continual care?

Corinne: Yeah, I think this is kind of a tricky one, which I think communication is very important in this respect. If you were leaving and you were trying to compile this list, I think I would want to have some communication with the organization that you’re leaving. If they have someone who’s appropriate, I think it would be appropriate to have an internal person. If they have no one, particularly if that’s within the Code of Ethics to provide that, I think, again, you have to provide that. I’ll tell a story in a minute about, I think, what is solicitation and what’s not solicitation. But in terms of this context, I think if your Code of Ethics says that, I think if you can find an internal person, great. But if not, I think it’s appropriate to provide external people as well.

Scenario #2

Kayla: And I know you have a scenario question, but I’m going to actually add another layer to this that often comes up for therapists is if we’re required to share referrals, why can’t the therapist themselves be a referral? Like, say they’re starting their own private practice or they’re going to another company, if they continue to work in the therapy field and are accessible to the client why can’t they be a referral knowing that a non-solicitation clause exists? I’m really making this confusing here today. But these are something that, we often come up against as therapist because we have something on this side telling us to do this. And then we have something on this side to tell us to do this. And we’re like, “Ah, what do we do?”

Corinne:  I think that one’s a little bit more difficult. And I guess I would say again, there might be times when you’re leaving a practice where they really don’t have anybody with your expertise. Maybe they don’t even want to do that kind of therapy anymore. But I think sending out, and I don’t know how this is communicated to patients or clients either, but if you were going to put yourself on that list when you’re exiting, I think I would want to get consent from the internal people to say that that’s okay. That maybe that’s kind of a happy balance because technically, I think. Particularly if you’re giving that communication while you’re still in the practice, I think that could be considered solicitation because that’s an active communication. “Hey, I’m over here. You can follow me.” So, I think that is pretty clearly that could be solicitation. Again, there are other things that I don’t think are solicitation. That I think people can do once they exit.

What is and isn’t Solicitation

Kayla: Perfect. So that’s helpful to think about. So, I’m really curious on that example you were referring to, like the difference between what is and isn’t solicitation.

Corinne: Yeah. Well, again, I think I’ve seen sort of the good, bad and the ugly now of a lot of these kind of examples. A really clear time that I saw was there was a person, and it wasn’t in the healthcare field, but there was somebody inside a business who he knew he was going to be leaving so some months before he actually left, he started forwarding all kinds of emails from his business account to a new account which contained confidential client information, lists, all kinds of contact information. So, he was already planning his exit, but was forwarding information to an email address. And then once he did leave, he took those lists and information and started at the top and started emailing people and calling people. That’s very clearly solicitation to me. So that’s very clear on one end.

I did get a panicked phone call one time from somebody who said, they had left, they were working with another business. They had left, had started their own thing, had a non -solicitation clause, and they said, “Oh, my God, I just ran into one of my old clients at the farmer’s market, and they asked me what I was doing now. And I didn’t know what to say, because all I could think about was, ‘Oh, my God, I have this non solicitation clause.’ And what can I do in that scenario?” You know, they live in a small community and I’m like, that is not solicitation. You bump into someone at the farmer’s market and they ask you what you’re doing now, like you can say what you’re doing now. That’s not you taking– and sometimes I refer to this as inside information. If you’re using inside information to contact people. So yeah, fine. You run into somebody at Sobeys, the Superstore, the farmer’s market or wherever. You can also generally advertise and if people have been following you on your social media account previously, and they still are like, again, that’s not specifically solicitation. So, you can still exist in the world.

And that’s sometimes where, again, being connected with people on LinkedIn, or– we all know social media has its goods and its bads. But a simple example of being connected with someone on LinkedIn and them seeing where you are now. That’s not solicitation.

Scenario #3

Kayla: That actually goes into my next question and it’s kind of like an alternate scenario to the last scenario that I shared with you. So, what if a client wants to follow their therapist to their next place of employment or private practice, even if the therapist didn’t give them as a referral. They just asked them where are you going and they say that they’re going X, Y, and Z. And they request to follow the therapist without being solicited by the therapist in any way, could this be considered a violation of non-solicitation clause even though solicitation didn’t take place?

Corinne: Well, again, I’ll defer to people in their own– especially regulated people, but my understanding is that patients, clients have the rights to choose their own providers, right? So, as much as we might think of a client or a patient belongs to a practice. They do have the right to leave. So, to me, that’s not solicitation. Again, they can decide. And I’m also pretty sure that providers have the obligation to provide records and all that kind of stuff when someone does leave.

So, again, from a business owner perspective, you’re trying to protect your client list. You’re trying to protect all their confidential information and all that goes along with that. But yeah, they have the right to leave if they want to. They’re not in a contract forever with you, so. And that’s tricky. Of course, as a business owner, you want to retain everybody, but yeah, they can vote with their feet.

Protecting Yourself from Solicitation Claims

Kayla: No, that makes sense. And so, this brings a kind of a step further is how might a therapist protect themselves if the agency says, “Hey, you just solicited this client.” What can they do when they know, in fact, it didn’t happen and a client actually went to this person afterwards?

Corinne: Yeah, the note that I made is make your exit very clean. Make your exit as clean as possible. You can even say to them, like, “I’m leaving. Tomorrow’s my last day. I want to make sure that you know that I haven’t downloaded anything. Please remove my access.” With people working remotely sometimes they forget to revoke people’s access. But I would even remind them, this is where you can be proactive, like remind them to say, “Look, tomorrow’s my last day. Please revoke my access. Here are my keys. Please change my passwords. Like, let’s do this very cleanly.”

I’ve had some people want to be very proactive about this. So, they almost kind of send a letter saying “I’m aware of this non-solicitation clause. Here all that we’ve done to wrap things up.” We didn’t really talk about this, but sometimes in contractor agreements, there is a specification about who owns what clients or patients. So, it’s always good to be very clear on that part too, that whether you recognize that, “Okay, all the clients are yours. Like I’m not taking, at least at this point, I’m not taking any of them with me.” I’ve seen this in some practice agreements that like anybody who was a client of the practice or who the practice refers to them remains a client of the practice, but maybe the contractor, if they, if it’s their mom or their friend or whatever, some of those could be clients of theirs.

So, again, make it very clear on exit who you’re taking with you, if you actually have some clients of your own and acknowledge that, yes, I realize I’m subject to this non-solicitation clause, and I’m planning to honour it. You know what I mean? You kind of try to be a little bit proactive. And then, of course, actually do that. I think that’s the biggest thing.

If you do legitimately need to take some information with you, again, communicate that clearly. Because some of it might belong to you and maybe you saved it on their server or you uploaded it somewhere. But yeah, acknowledge your obligations and try to make as clean a break and communicate all that stuff as well as you can.

Purchasing Agreements and Non-Competition Clauses

Kayla: That’s some really great advice. Earlier on, you said you were going to park something. You mentioned that you were going to park the purchasing side of non-competition clauses, I believe it was. So, can you tell us a little bit about that piece?

Corinne: Yeah. So again, non-competition clauses, employment agreements. No. Contractor agreements, I would say probably still not in there, but they are subject to some negotiation. If you are purchasing a business, like purchasing a practice, there may be a non-competition agreement in there. You might want one in there, or obviously if you’re selling a practice. So if you’ve been operating a practice for many, many years, you’ve now decided you want to retire, go do something else, and I’m purchasing your practice, part of the purchase price is I’m purchasing the goodwill. I’m purchasing the clients. Sometimes like we will have even calculated the value based on how many active clients you have. So, the law again has recognized that that’s a legitimate time to say, “Look, you can’t practice within–” and that’s where, again, you have to define a timeframe and a geographic region. And then that has to be reasonable.

Now, again, what is reasonable? Usually, you have a pretty good sense of that. It depends how many of these people there are in a particular area. Like I know with, again, I always come back to dentists, but I did so much work with dentists. Normally with dentists, it would only be, maybe a street or a part of a city, in a big city, it would only be a very tight geographic region. Like it might be like. I’m in Halifax, but it might be like Spring Garden Road, or it might be a two-kilometer radius within that dentist’s office. In a smaller town, it could be like the town or a county or something like that, but you need to refer to that really tightly. And then again, it’s usually like anywhere from two to five years.

But again, I am buying your goodwill. So, I don’t want you to decide you go to Florida, you golf for a while, or you do whatever and you decide, no, I’m kind of bored. I want to come back to being a therapist. I don’t want you to do that. And I definitely don’t want you to do it within a very tight geographic region of where you used to be. So, the law recognizes again, we’re talking about balancing, the law recognizes that I’ve kind of bought and paid for that restriction.

Whereas with employees, again, the law hates to restrict people’s ability to make a living. That’s why employment agreements, in terms of balancing it and public policy, we don’t want to restrict people from doing the thing that they’re trained to do. But if I’ve bought and paid for it in a purchase and sale agreement, it’s seen as a more legitimate reason.

Kayla: That makes complete sense. So, if a therapist has a non-competition clause or a non-solicitation clause in their hiring contract, is there any advice that you would give them in order for them to better understand their rights? And I’m even going to bring that a step further. Is there anything that therapists who are going to hire other therapists should consider when including non-competition or non-solicitation clauses in their contracts.

Considerations When Using Non-Competition Clauses in Contracts

Corinne: I would say if you are hiring people as employees, just take it out. Don’t put it in there. If you are hiring people as contractors, I would think long and hard. I am of the opinion that if you have a non-solicitation clause that’s properly drafted, and confidentiality clauses, like it could be a non-disclosure agreement, that you can get there, like you can get there. Again, we’re talking about what interests you’re trying to protect, I think that you can properly protect your interests with a non-solicitation clause plus an NDA or confidentiality clauses. So, I am not a fan of putting non-competition clauses in either employee or contractor agreements if you’re hiring.

On the flip side of that, if you are presented with one, if you’re an employee, man, you’re in a tough spot, I would say. You could push back and say, “They’re not enforceable, so please take it out.” If they push back and say, “No, our lawyer or we’ve always had it in there or whatever.” I mean, at the end of the day, they are hard to enforce. So, I don’t know. It’s a thing in there. If they ever took you to court and tried to enforce it, it wouldn’t be worth really the paper that it’s written on. It’s not nice to have in there, though, because some employers will put pressure on people and point to it. But I think again, in reality, it’s very hard to enforce with employees.

In Ontario, it’s very super-duper clear, but I think the law is always like I said, not love them. So, I don’t know. Depends on how your brain works. I would ask for it to be removed. If it doesn’t get removed, you could probably live with the knowledge that it wouldn’t be enforced by court but that’s not as great as having it removed.

If somebody presents you with a contractor agreement, I would try to negotiate it out of the agreement and say, ” What are your biggest concerns here? And let’s address them through a non-solicitation clause. So, what do you not want me to do? And let’s spell that out as clear as day. What you can’t do. And let’s put that in a non-solicitation clause.” And then it’s very clear for both parties. And there’s two time periods where these clauses apply, I should say, they apply when you’re in the relationship. And then there usually is a, like you said, there’s a time period afterwards. So, make it very clear what you can do while the contract is in place, while you’re working in their practice and your own practice or somebody else, you know. And then make it very clear, “If this relationship ends, if we terminate this agreement. What do you not want me to do? And what can I do?” And that can be written in very clear English because every practice is going to be a little bit different. But yeah, put that in clear English during and then after. So, get at the real concerns. And this is where I think if people dig into it a little bit further, it’s just good for everybody because you get on the same page.

Kayla: I love that clarity piece because historically, people put it in because it’s always been there, or another contract had it in there. But it’s to ask why is it in there, right? Like, what’s the purpose? What’s the reason? Because again, going back to how non-solicitation and non-competition clauses are the same, but they differ. It’s that often the word non-solicitation is actually meant as the non-competition and vice versa. So, it’s really understanding. What is the issue here? What’s the concern and what is the person wanting to be protected from. And really understanding that can even help the person being hired really understand is this a place that I want to work in? Am I willing to sign this now that I know this if they’re not willing to take it out or maybe through that negotiation, both parties get a better understanding of this is the issue. And now this is how it’s going to be in the contract. So, I love that piece.

Corinne: And I was going to say, sometimes I’ve even– someone said, “Oh, my God, I have a contract with a non-competition clause in it,” and I’ve gone to read it. And the heading says non-competition, but then I read the words and I’m like, this is actually a non-solicitation clause. So, for anyone who’s confused out there, there’s a lot of reason for confusion. They’re not always drafted great. And some people again, take bits and pieces from other contracts or so they’re not always well thought out.

What I tell everyone about contracts is if you are a business sending contracts out to people, you should be prepared to answer questions. You need to understand your own contracts. And on the flip side, whenever someone sends you a contract, don’t be afraid to ask questions and don’t be afraid to negotiate. Sometimes I need to put on my own big girl pants and be like, “Yeah, I don’t like that clause.” I was just looking to hire someone and I went through their terms and conditions and there was something in there that I couldn’t live with. And I’m like, okay, yeah, we’re just peace out. I can’t live with that clause, so yeah.

Connecting Your Values with Your Contracts

Kayla: That’s a good point. And sometimes we worry about potentially losing a place of employment or potential client source. But again, it goes back to what matters to you. And going back to my intro, when I first started, I knew first thing that if anyone introduced me to a non-competition, I was not going to accept it because building my business was my big priority. And with that I didn’t know about the legal pieces to it at that point. I just knew that from a values perspective and from a vision perspective, that is not what I wanted. So, it’s really also thinking about, what is it that you’re okay with? What is your vision? What is your values? And how does this all play into that as well?

Corinne: Yeah. And sometimes I know, like, you just got to put food on the table. You just have to pay the rent. You might be in a situation where you have to accept what someone puts in front of you. But at least you understand what that means. And again, you understand what the implications might be even after the relationship ends.

Corinne’s Free Webinar

Kayla: Love that. So, you have a free webinar that our listeners can watch. Is that right?

Corinne: I do. I am a fan of the webinar. Because of my background, I didn’t even mention that, but yeah, I have worked a lot in health care, particularly long-term care. But I’ve always had a lot of health care related clients and customers.

So, I teamed up with Jean Eaton, who is a health care privacy expert. And we put on a webinar called Roadmap to Start Your Online Healthcare Practice. So, it’s specifically for Canadian healthcare practitioners. It’s an on-demand webinar. So, once you register, you can watch it right away. So, it’s for people who are starting, but also again, cover some of these big foundational pieces that we think healthcare practitioners in Canada should be thinking about around the law and privacy. So, we have that available.

Kayla: Fabulous. And you also have a free resource too. Am I right saying that too?

Corinne: That’s right. Yes. This is my most popular, I guess I would say freebie. I created an online checklist for running a business online in Canada. So, lots of times people say to me, “I don’t know what I don’t know. So, what I should, what should I even be thinking about here?” So, I created again, a very simple PDF checklist, which you can download and you can very quickly identify, “Okay, got this, got this, got this. Oh, don’t know about that one.” So, it just helps people to kind of do an overall kind of check to see what they might have and what they might need to do next.

Corinne: Fabulous. So, to sign up for Corinne’s free webinar, Roadmap to Start your Online Healthcare Practice, you can check out kayladas.com/corinneboudreauwebinar

Or if you want to also download Corinne’s Ultimate Checklist for Running an Online Business, you can check out kayladas.com/corinneboudreaufreebie

Or you can simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.

Conclusion

Corinne, thank you so much for coming on the show and breaking down the differences and similarities between non-competition and non-solicitation clauses within therapy hiring contracts. It’s certainly a misunderstood concept in the therapy world, so I’m so grateful that we got some clarity on that today.

Corinne: Well, thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to do that.

Kayla: Thank you, everyone, for tuning into today’s episode, and I hope you join me again soon on the Designer Practice Podcast.

Until next time, bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by ItsWatR from Pixabay

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