I recently resigned from a staffing firm in NJ and accepted an offer with a firm out of Colorado that is opening a remote office about 18 miles from my former employer. It is not a profit center, just a place to work for me and another recruiter since we live in NJ. The job orders we would be working on are national and originated by sales reps out of Colorado. The industry is completely different than the industry I worked in with my former company and is different than any industries my former company handles. However, my former boss is threatening to go after me because I had a non-compete that says I cannot work for any staffing firm within a 50-mile radius of that firm for a period of 1-year. Can a former employer really enforce a contract that prohibits me from working in recruiting in general for a whole year? This is my livelihood I am talking about. I would not be able to make this same amount of money changing careers for a year.

Maybe.

You need to take a copy of your noncompete to a lawyer.

How is there even a maybe? How is that "protecting his business" if the industries are unrelated? And what do I do if my former employer is not returning calls to my attorney to provide him with a copy of this non-compete agreement? I'm scheduled to start with my new job in a week. They never even asked me if I had a non-compete with my prior firm. I never considered it an issue because of the fact that they were two, totally different and non-competing industries.

There is a maybe because, not having read the agreement, we cannot tell you when it does and does not apply. No one can interpret an agreement they have not read.