When a veterinarian or tech walks out the door, a non-solicitation agreement is the clause that can stop them from actively taking your clients and your staff with them.
It cannot force clients to stay, and state law decides whether it works at all: Oklahoma writes non-solicits into statute, while a California appeals court has voided one.
Here is what these clauses cover, where they fail, and how to set duration and scope.
Rules vary by state and change
This guide explains federal rules and the state rules it names, as of the date above.
Employment law and veterinary practice rules differ by state and are revised often, so confirm current requirements with your state veterinary board, labor agency or employment counsel before you act on them.
It is general information, not legal advice.
Non-solicit vs. non-compete: what each one actually restricts
A non-compete tells a departing employee where they cannot work: not at the practice across town, not within a radius, not in clinical work at all for a period.
A non-solicitation clause is narrower.
It leaves the departing employee free to work — including down the street — but bars specific conduct: asking your clients to move their business, or asking your staff to leave with them.
That narrowness is why practices reach for non-solicits.
The two assets a non-solicit is built to protect are the ones at stake when an associate leaves — the client relationships and the team — and it goes after exactly those without telling a licensed professional they cannot practice.
If you have read that non-competes were banned federally, the accurate picture as of October 2026 is this: the Federal Trade Commission’s 2024 Non-Compete Clause Rule is not in effect and is not enforceable.
A federal district court stopped the FTC from enforcing the rule on August 20, 2024, the Commission voted 3-1 on September 5, 2025 to dismiss its appeals and accept vacatur, and a final rule removed it from the Code of Federal Regulations effective February 12, 2026.
No federal ban on non-competes — or on non-solicits — is in effect; restrictive covenants are state law.
Enforcement did not vanish with the rule.
In November 2025, the FTC finalized a consent order requiring Gateway Services, Inc., a pet cremation company, to stop enforcing noncompete agreements against its employees.
That order does not set rules for veterinary clinics, but it is an animal-industry-adjacent reminder that the agency still pursues individual cases.
The state-by-state law on the bigger restraint — where a departing veterinarian can still be asked to sign a non-compete, and which states void them — is a series of its own, and this page stays on the non-solicit.
The wider story is in our guide to veterinary non-competes.
Client non-solicits: what “solicit” means
A client non-solicit bars a departing employee from actively going after your practice’s clients — the calls, texts, emails and direct messages that amount to bring your pet to my new practice.
It does not let you control the client.
A client who decides on their own to follow a veterinarian they trust can do exactly that; the clause regulates the employee’s outreach, not the client’s choice.
Where the clause is lawful, its value turns on the definitions — and one state’s statute shows where that line can be drawn.
Oklahoma law (15 O.S. § 219A) lets a former employee who agreed not to compete work in the same or a similar business as long as they do not directly solicit the sale of goods or services from the former employer’s established customers, and terms in the contract that conflict with that are void.
Read that wording closely as an example of where one legislature drew the line — it is Oklahoma law, and it does not decide what a court in another state will enforce.
Two limits do the work there.
The protected group is established customers — the statute’s own phrase — and the banned conduct is direct solicitation, not contact of any kind.
Those two ideas are a useful drafting starting point: name the clients the practice actually serves as of the separation date, and define solicitation as direct, targeted asks rather than vaguely barring “contacting” or “dealing with” clients.
If you leave “solicit” undefined, you invite an argument over whether a generic announcement — a new-job post on social media, an advertisement open to the public — counts as solicitation.
Spell out what is banned: direct, targeted communication aimed at named clients.
Marketing that is not aimed at your client roster then sits outside the clause by its own words instead of inside a gray area.
Employee no-poach clauses: stopping the staff raid
The second flavor targets the team instead of the book.
An employee non-solicit bars a departing employee from soliciting your staff to leave — recruiting your best technician to a new practice, or telling the front-desk team there are openings down the road.
State law treats these clauses very differently, and both ends of the range are on the public record: a statute on one end, a published appeal decision on the other.
In Oklahoma, 15 O.S. § 219B provides that a clause barring an employee or contractor from soliciting the business’s employees or contractors to leave is not a restraint of trade — the state expressly takes no-poach clauses outside the doctrine that voids restraints.
California is the cautionary case.
In AMN Healthcare, Inc. vs. Aya Healthcare Services, Inc., decided by a California Court of Appeal in November 2018, the court held a one-year employee non-solicitation clause void under Business and Professions Code 16600.
The details matter before you generalize: the clause was signed by recruiters whose job was recruiting, and it is an intermediate appellate decision about that setting — not a holding that every employee non-solicit is void in California.
Have employment counsel read a no-poach clause against current California case law rather than assuming either way.
The same drafting discipline applies as with clients: name the protected group (your current staff), define the banned conduct as direct recruitment rather than any contact, and keep the clause to solicitation.
The moment it restricts where a departing employee may work, it has become a non-compete and inherits every state-law problem in the section below.
Which states void or limit non-solicitation agreements?
There is no tidy list of states that void non-solicitation agreements, and any forum post that hands you one deserves suspicion.
The statutes point in different directions: a state can void restraints broadly enough that a court has applied the voiding rule to a non-solicit, ban non-competes while expressly sparing non-solicits, or write non-solicits directly into statute.
The four states below illustrate the range.
California voids restraints broadly, and the 2024 amendments raised the stakes.
Business and Professions Code 16600(a) makes every contract that restrains anyone from engaging in a lawful profession, trade or business void to that extent, except as the chapter provides.
Since January 1, 2024, the code says the section must be read broadly — it voids any noncompete agreement in an employment context no matter how narrowly tailored, unless a statutory exception applies.
SB 699, also effective January 1, 2024, added that a contract void under the chapter is unenforceable regardless of where and when it was signed, and that an employer shall not enter into one with an employee or prospective employee in the first place.
Employees can enforce this themselves: a worker may sue for injunctive relief or actual damages, and a prevailing employee recovers reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.
California employers also had to notify current and certain former employees by February 14, 2024 that any noncompete clause not meeting an exception is void.
Where do non-solicits land in all this?
The Court of Appeal’s AMN decision applied section 16600 to void an employee non-solicit; beyond that decision, the rule for non-solicits comes from the statute plus case law — counsel territory.
North Dakota’s statute is broad, with two exceptions.
North Dakota Century Code 9-08-06 voids any contract that restrains anyone from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business — except agreements covering the sale of a business’s goodwill and agreements in a partnership, LLC or corporate dissolution or dissociation.
How North Dakota courts treat non-solicitation clauses under that statute is case-law territory this page does not reach; ask counsel before you rely on the clause either way.
Minnesota banned non-competes and expressly left non-solicits alone.
Minnesota Statutes 181.988, enacted in 2023, makes covenants not to compete in employment void and unenforceable, with exceptions only for the sale or dissolution of a business.
The same statute says a covenant not to compete does not include a nonsolicitation agreement, or an agreement restricting the ability to use client lists or solicit customers.
A Minnesota practice has lost the non-compete and kept the non-solicit — the narrower tool survived the ban.
Oklahoma writes non-solicits into statute.
As covered above, a former employee who agreed not to compete may still work in the same or a similar business there so long as they do not directly solicit the practice’s established customers, and no-poach clauses are expressly outside restraint-of-trade doctrine.
These four are the states this page covers at the statute level; the research behind it reviewed these statutes, not every other state’s.
For any other state, have employment counsel confirm the current rule before anyone signs.
The non-compete side has its own state-by-state map, which the career-guide series tracks separately — check the non-compete rules by state before you rely on a boundary you were told about years ago.
Who owns the client records and the patient list?
Underneath every non-solicit sits an ownership question: whose clients, whose records, whose list?
The honest answer is less satisfying than either side wants.
In the research behind this page, no primary source was found — in any state — stating that a veterinary practice owns its client list or patient list.
Whether the list belongs to the practice is a matter of contract and trade-secret law, argued clause by clause; it is not something a statute hands you, which is exactly why the wording needs counsel.
What statutes do address is the medical record.
California’s veterinary records regulation, 16 CCR 2032.3, says radiographs and digital images are the property of the veterinary facility that originally ordered them, and it requires veterinary medical records to be kept at least three years after the animal’s last visit.
Note the reach: that rule settles who owns the images and how long records are kept — it does not declare general ownership of client lists or patient lists, and only California was researched here.
Confidentiality adds a second layer, again in California: Business and Professions Code 4857 bars a licensed veterinarian from disclosing information about an animal patient, its client, or the care provided, except in listed circumstances — among them the client’s written or witnessed verbal informed consent, or disclosure required by law.
That duty travels with the license, not just with your contract.
Other states’ veterinary confidentiality rules were not verified for this page, so check your state veterinary board’s rules before assuming the same protection applies.
Practically, this is why the paperwork matters more than the folklore.
Your contracts should say who may take what when someone leaves — which records are copied for clients, which stay with the facility, and how the client list is treated.
The non-solicit governs the outreach; a confidentiality provision governs the information; neither does the other’s job.
Drafting the clause: duration, scope and the federal notice
Start with the uncomfortable part: our research found no source setting a standard duration, and none of the statutes this page cites prescribes a length for a non-solicit.
No number should be read as an industry default.
The duration is a judgment — long enough to protect relationships the practice actually built, short enough that a judge does not read it as a non-compete in disguise — and it is a judgment to own with your employment attorney, state by state.
Scope decisions do the real work.
Name the protected relationships: the established clients of the practice as of the separation date, and the people on your payroll.
Define “solicit” as direct, targeted outreach rather than banning contact of any kind, and say what is not covered so the definition has edges.
Keep the clause to solicitation — the moment it restricts where a departing employee may work, it has become a non-compete and inherits every state-law problem above.
One federal requirement is easy to miss.
Under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, an employer must give notice of whistleblower immunity in any contract or agreement with an employee that governs the use of a trade secret or other confidential information.
A client list is exactly the kind of information such an agreement may treat as confidential — so if the document your non-solicit lives in governs the use of confidential information, the notice is required.
Check that it is present in whatever document the clause lives in; exactly the kind of detail counsel catches.
If your staff span state lines, resist fixing the clause with choice-of-law boilerplate.
California’s Business and Professions Code 16600.5 makes a contract that is void under the chapter unenforceable regardless of where and when it was signed — California can simply refuse to honor the clause no matter what the signature page says.
The workable version is boring: one review per state where an employee actually works, and clauses you would be comfortable showing a judge.
The rest of the hiring paperwork around the clause — offers, screening, onboarding — lives in our veterinary hiring hub.
Before you put a non-solicit in front of anyone
- Confirm the clause is lawful for employees in each state where your staff work — not just where the practice is incorporated
- Decide what you are protecting — established clients, current staff, or both — and use language aimed at each
- Define “solicit” as direct, targeted outreach to named clients or staff, and say what is not covered
- Set a specific duration in months — a number you can justify, since none of the statutes this page cites sets one
- If the document restricts use of client lists or confidential information, check that the federal DTSA whistleblower-immunity notice is present
- If any signer is a California employee, get advice before using the clause — California voids restraints broadly and lets employees sue over them
- Have an employment attorney licensed in your state review the final wording before anyone signs