I want to rush this in before the thread gets locked (if SC is lockiing it) – NUTTYBUNNY, post again in MPSIMS and let us know how it goes.
Thank you. I intended to make this point earlier. **Random ** is right; ther are plenty of other kinds of agreements that look a little like non-competes but get different treatment from courts.
Exactly.
I’m not a lawyer so I won’t offer any legal opinions.
But what I will say is that I expect you won’t be happy with your new job in the long run. Your new employer has shown they have no respect for their business relationships. How will they treat you, a mere employee ?
Secondly, you are presently employed with a professional accounting firm. It is in their interest to invest in you by keeping you abreast of current developments and hopefully advance to a more senior position.
Your new job won’t be the same. The focus of this HVAC company is to make money and accounting is an inconvenient overhead. You are paid well for what you know now. Will they continue to invest in you ? When a senior position in accounting opens up will they go to you or will they go to a headhunter to find someone who has developed more current qualifications in the professional arena?
I’m not saying that this will be the case in your situation, but I made that mistake jumping from an engineering firm to a heavy construction firm very early in my engineering career for much bigger bucks and regretted it ever since.
After a long weekend of worrying about whether or not my new employer would still want to hire me, I found out that everyone at my current office has cooled down and things are fine. I heard the same thing from my new employer, so everything is fine.
Everyone had a knee-jerk reaction to my telling them because I’m the one with the most experience and can handle the messiest of books. Plus, they were planning on firing someone that afternoon (she was very incompetent).
So, I start on Sept. 18, but I’m still working there during the afternoons as a CPA firm employee. They can’t wait, because I’m $55 per hour, as opposed to $20, when I’m hired. 
Thanks for all the advice. I’m sorry it got so heated. I didn’t mean to get legal advice per se, but more “hey, have you experienced this” kind of advice.
That will never happen with my Associates degree.
I’m not sure if you mean the accounting firm. $15/hour is not considered well-paid in my field. It’s the Associates degree again.
I’m sorry to hear that. That sucks. I’ve had my fleeting moments of doubt, but I think that is just fear of the unknown. The new employer expects the position I’m in to grow into more of a controllership position, rather than full-charge bookkeeper. There’s no growth at the accounting firm. They even told me that when they hired me.
I’d *love * to see a cite where someone was convicted of this when the layperson involved did NOT do one or both of the following: 1. Pass themsleves off an an attorney, or 2. Charge for that advice/service. I mean, doesn’t the 1st Ad give one the right to Free speech? Now, I admit the State has the right to license businesses and professionals (so, sure, they could nab you if you charged for legal advice) and also Fraud is a crime (so they could nab you if you falsely claimed to be a lawyer), but an off the cuff remark- even if on legal issues- doesn’t seem to me like the sort of thing they could successfully prosecute. So, do you have a cite where a layperson was convicted of such a crime where the two factors I mentioned above were not in evidence? 
As others have said, if you are working under a contract, or there is a contract between the two employers, then the question is the enforceability of the contract. Otherwise, you’re probably clear.
I just wanted to add though, that back in my old days as a CPA, the move from the CPA firm to the client’s firm was a normal, natural career progression. It might burden your immediate supervisor a bit, but anytime you leave that happens, and in the long run having ex-employees working for their clients helps CPA firms maintain good relationships (and better service).
Perhaps of tengential interest is the famous case of Nolo Press, in Texas. As I recall the basic facts, Nolo Press published a series of “self-help” books and forms to assist people in various legal matters. If you wanted a simple will, for example, Nolo had a “fill-in-the-blanks” will. If you wanted a simple lease, there was a lease boilerplate in a Nolo book to use.
They did, admittedly, charge people for the books they sold.
The Texas bar committee on the unauthorized practice of law investigated and charged Nolo with violating Texas law with respect to unauthorized practice thereof. They alleged that publishing these books amounted to the practice of law. I don’t remember if Nolo was ultimately convicted and appealed, or whether the following event happened during the original trial, but the Texas legislature met in special session to pass a law exempting book self-help books and software from the state’s UPL statute, as long as there was a disclaimer on the cover saying that the product was not, in fact, a lawyer. So the case was ultimately mooted.
Here’s one: South Carolina v. McLauren, 563 S.E.2d 346 (S.C. 2002). A jailhouse lawyer cannot provide legal advice to inmates and assist them with filling out forms, even if he discloses that he is not a lawyer and even if he is not paid:
I think this is the case you are talking about: UNAUTHORIZED PRACTICE OF LAW COMMITTEE v. PARSONS TECHNOLOGY, INC d/b/a Quicken Family Lawyer: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/st_org/iptf/exhibits/1999031701_uplc_v_parsons.html, vacated and remanded, 179 F.3d 956; 1999 U.S. App. LEXIS 14234 (5th Cir. 1999) (based on intervening change of law).
Forgive the rather eclectic citation form.
Ah yes, I remember that. Nolo never convicted.
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/September-October-2003/scene_slater_sepoct03.msp
"Publishers didn’t bite. A few years earlier, a guy named Norman Dacey had published a book called How to Avoid Probate and had promptly been convicted for the unauthorized practice of law. Dacey eventually won on appeal, and his book became a bestseller (beating out Masters and Johnson’s Human Sexual Response). Nevertheless, the publishers to whom Sherman sent his manuscript were wary of trespassing on the legal profession’s jealously guarded territory. "
"At the same time, self-help law is still viewed with suspicion. Six years ago, Nolo was investigated by the Texas Supreme Court’s UPL subcommittee, which charged that the press’s Living Trust Maker software was (all by itself) practicing law without a license. Incensed, Nolo hired a real Texas lawyer and sued the UPL subcommittee for violating the company’s right to free speech. The press also called a few reporters. The image of Texas lawyers walking their big boots all over the First Amendment made for great publicity. Time magazine opined that “Nolo’s real crime may be putting the law into the hands of laypeople for $15 to $45 a pop.”
Stung by the derision, the Texas legislature met in emergency session to pass a law exempting self-help books and software from the state’s UPL statute, as long as there was a disclaimer on the cover saying that the product was not, in fact, a lawyer. Nolo sales in Texas skyrocketed. Like the earlier tiff with the Sacramento Bar Association, the episode turned into a boon for the company. "
Thus, these cases would seem to indicate that some sorts of “legal advice” by non-attorneys do come under the 1st Ad. At least as far as printing a self-help legal book, anyway.
I completely agree that non-lawyers should *not * give specific advice on non-trivial non-hypothetical “legal problems”.
*Very good cite. * But it appears that the dude did attempt to pass himself off as a lawyer:
“McLauren filed a PCR application on behalf of Mark E. Rourk, also an inmate at the Allendale Correctional Institution. The PCR application stated that it had been completed by “Brent C. McLauren, Jr., Esq. … Of Legal Counsel to Petitioner.” The application included a cover letter that stated “Brent C. McLauren, Jr., Esq.” The documents submitted included a PCR application, a memorandum of law, motions, an affidavit of service, and a statement of legal counsel. The documents were filed in Dorchester County. McLauren is not and never has been a licensed attorney in South Carolina.”… “He admitted several times he practiced law, stating at one point, “*f I was in society practicing law in the same capacity that I practice law while incarcerated ….” In a cross examination question, he stated, “You should be aware that I’ve been practicing law, if that’s what you want to call it ….” He later stated, “I have no problem with admitting that I’m a jailhouse lawyer ….””
But I’ll give you a half point, as that’s a pretty damn good cite. Thanks!
McLauren is puzzling, in view of *Johnson v. Avery *and its progeny.
Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817 (1977): http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=430&invol=817
Perhaps South Carolina has made other provisions for representation of inmates, or (as seems more likely) McLauren didn’t raise the issue in the trial court.
Could it be that the dude went beyond simple assistance to the point of calling himself “Brent C. McLauren, Jr., Esq. … Of Legal Counsel to Petitioner.” ?
Another good cite, btw. 
If only he had been represented by a licensed attorney…
Definitely a possibility, but notice that he made two similar non-constitutional arguments (sections II and III of the opinion) and got tied up in nice readings of the statute. In section II, “He contends that many such inmates are indigent, uneducated, [***12] and otherwise without any other available means to adequately pursue post- conviction relief,” which sounds a lot like Avery. The Court responded:
Doesn’t sound like the court found Esq. and Legal Counsel significant.
Section III is telling:
So *Avery * probably would not have helped him. He could indeed have assisted inmates as long as he got court permission first.
But it doesn’t look like he even brought it up. And the arguments he did make were no better.
Wasn’t gonna say it. 
Again, please excuse the poorly edited quotations. Busy day today.
DrDeth, there is definitely something to your point about the First Amendment. As Wolfram notes in Modern Legal Ethics (Student ed. 1986):
(footnotes omitted).
But see, Parsons, cited above (upholding Texas UPL rule without reference to commercial speech cases, noting the rule was content-neutral and withstood intermediate level scrutiny under O’Brien).
Gentlemen, you can’t fight here. This is GQ!
Anyhow, this struck me. Do you know if your new employer is planning to pay your old employer the fee they would have gotten if they had placed someone in your new job? If not, I can certainly understand why they are pissed.
When I used to hire contractors (in New Jersey) the agencies were very clear upfront if hiring the contractors ourselves was allowed, and, if so, what the terms would be. Some forbade it, and some encouraged it, with the appropriate reward for them.
In my experience, it is considered very bad form for a customer or vendor of a company to poach people from that company. If it happens, there are often high level checks before an offer is made, to avoid the very situation you’re now experiencing. Your new employers are very naive at best.
BTW, some people have suggested you try to get your current employer to match the salary. Bad move. If they do, start looking for a job immediately, since you’ve proven yourself to be disloyal, and they would probably be looking for your replacement as soon as you get the new salary.
Thanks Gfactor and Bricker. Very educational. 
I think they paid the deposit so far and they had interviewed a bunch of people our HR firm sent over there, so I can’t see how they would get away with not paying. The CPA & HR firms are owned by the same people, so the relationship w/ the CPA firm would deteriorate.
That’s funny. When I was talking to my manager, she said “There was talk of a counteroffer with more money and less tax season hours, but we didn’t want to put the stess of making the decision on you.”
She also said that at my review at the end of September, they were going to raise my salary about $10K anyway, which is complete bullshit. Why even mention these two things if they aren’t on the table?
They’ve told me I’m their best employee in this department (which is true–everyone else is either new or inexperienced), so I’m surprised they didn’t try to keep me.