Listen to this person. The people telling you to talk to your employer are giving you terrible advice. You can still do that after spending 30 minutes with a lawyer, but you can't take back anything you say before you talk to a lawyer.
Always always always talk to a lawyer. If your dog walker (at the peak of their career) friend was like “I need a website” you wouldn’t be like “learn JavaScript” you would say find a programmer. If I had 10 dollars for every time I had to spend weeks convincing an engineer friend to talk to an attorney and then when they finally did it got dealt with in 30 minutes... Lawyers are just “full stack law architects” do your self a favor
I find kneejerk advice to consult lawyers for anything that concerns the law frustrating for two reasons:
1. It never seems to be accompanied with advice on how to find the appropriate kind of lawyer.
2. It almost always seems to ignore the fact that lawyers are expensive. Sure, there are times when that cost is warranted, but I don't think it is right to ignore it. For example, in this case, it is probably only worth consulting a lawyer if the amount of compensation on the line is significantly more than the amount the OP would pay the lawyer. And what if the person you are advising can't afford a lawyer?
Also, concerning your metaphor, I would not just immediately say "find a programmer". I would find out what kind of website they wanted, then depending on their technical skills and what they wanted (and how close a friend they are) I might teach them how to make a website themselves, or point them toward more user-friendly tools to create websites. I'd only suggest they hire a web designer if they needed something really complicated or didn't have the skill or time to learn how to make a website themselves.
If you have a medical problem, you go to a doctor. If you have a legal problem, you go to a lawyer.
If you can't afford a lawyer you might as well roll over right now because that will be the end game.
The idea that some advice given in an online forum would reduce the need for finding a lawyer is akin to taking medical advice from a forum. You have no idea what the qualifications/experience/jurisdictions are of the people giving you advice so it might be good/neutral/detrimental.
Get a lawyer, one that specializes in IP and if possible to find those skills in one person as well as in employment law in your place of residence.
In the UK, most of my lawyer friends would tell you that lawyering up is the last course of action you want to take, as it tends to make issues more complicated, expensive and combative, though you might want to be careful what you admit / agree to.
There's a huge difference between going to litigation and just asking a lawyer what your legal position is (which needn't take too long or be too expensive) so you know the rough shape of what your 'worst case' looks like. Most businesses are reasonable and willing to do what's 'fair' even if that goes beyond what they might be legally required to do because employee goodwill is worth a lot to them and the cost to them of litigation is also high. But they will also have an idea of what their legal position is and that will inform their idea of what 'fair' is. A good lawyer will tell you what they'd expect you to be able to negotiate commercially and tell you to try that first.
Your employer doesn't even need to know you consulted a lawyer.
I agree with all that, the question is whether or not you want to get your way or roll over. If you want to roll over you can do so without consulting anybody, if you want to get your way you will need to figure out what your options are going forward and that will include talking to a lawyer.
Roll over isn't the only alternative to lawyer. OP could always just say "no" and see what happens. Maybe lawyers come in to play eventually, maybe they don't.
See that's why you talk to a lawyer first. They could let you know what the possible forks of 'see what happens' are. There might be angles there that are detrimental to the OP and it would be good to be aware of those up front before doing things that can't be undone, such as saying 'no'.
* OP is in the wrong and employer can't afford to pursue further. OP loses a lot of reputation as word spreads.
* OP is in the wrong and employer can't afford to pursue now. Five years down the line, when Oracle acquires employer, OP is sued for five years of damages.
* OP is in the right, but employer's lawyer crafts a very intimidating and compelling legal letter. OP backs down, having blown the relationship with the lawyer, loses rights, and is fired two months later.
It's helpful to be able to say "no" with conviction if one is right, or not press an issue if one is wrong.
It's not "lawyering up" but understanding the options available to you, your rights in the situation, and the potential consequences of all of it. You never even have to tell anyone that you spoke to an attorney.
> lawyering up is the last course of action you want to take, as it tends to make issues more complicated, expensive and combative
Not sure if the incentives are the same in the UK, but in the US, most lawyers retained in matters like this work for the client.
In that lawyers advise, the client decides, and then the lawyers attempt to realize the goal the client has chosen (if they decide to keep working for them).
Most people in the US seem to look at legal counsel as "Do what the lawyer says," when it's actually "listen to what the lawyer says, ask about alternatives, and then choose the course you want to take."
Or as I've heard it explained: a lawyer's default is to counsel the courses of action that will allow them to win a hypothetical jury trial two years from now.
When in reality, most things never get there, and some optimal courses of action for trial are antagonistic in a pre-trial context.
I mean you're right, but just stating your position usually actually makes this sort of stuff go away before anyone involves a lawyer, regardless of what the law (or precedence, as tends to be more important in the UK) suggests.
For the record, I've used solicitors before and it was a ball-ache. The first thing they tell you is the judges want you to have at least made an attempt at discourse before you can go to court.
> In the UK, most of my lawyer friends would tell you that lawyering up is the last course of action you want to take, as it tends to make issues more complicated, expensive and combative, though you might want to be careful what you admit / agree to.
In the UK you're entitled to 1 hour of free legal aid, so it's hardly expensive to consult with one who can direct you to the right person and place.
That really depends on how you define "lawyering up" - I'm not saying he should hire a lawyer and run all communications with his company through the lawyer moving forward. I'm just saying have a conversation with someone who understands the legal issues at hand here, then make an educated decision on how to proceed. He can always still have a friendly negotiation with his company after talking to a lawyer.
> ...is akin to taking medical advice from a forum.
Listening to doctors instead of carefully reading forums would have probably left me seriously crippled. Doctors hold no real liability, nor do they have any real expertise outside their (very narrow) problem domain.
There is no substitute for doing your own research if you want something done right.
As for doctors not having real expertise outside their (very narrow) problem domain: that's precisely why you want to see them if your problem is in that narrow domain.
This has been my experience over the last two years. When things get limited to a preset problem that doesn't fit the reality. The system has no mechanism in place when things go outside of the norm or expected.
Finding expert doctors and relaying updated information to family doctors doesn't work too well either.
And yet, if your arm was broken, I bet you'd see a doctor. An IP disagreement with an employer is an acute, not a chronic condition. When you don't have years to acquire the knowledge yourself, you go talk to someone who already has.
> If you have a medical problem, you go to a doctor.
No, if I have a medical problem _that is serious enough that it is worth the cost_ I go to a doctor. I don't go to the doctor for every cold or headache I get. Granted the OP is actually a case that might be worth that cost, but I've seen similar advice for much smaller things. I mean, I've asked questions about IP for my hobby open source projects, from which I don't expect to ever get a penny, and been told to get a lawyer. Or in this case, say compensation was off the table, is keeping ownership of the project worth hundreds or thousands of dollars for consulting a lawyer? Maybe. Only the OP would know that. And even after consulting a lawyer it's hardly a sure thing.
I'm not saying you should take legal advice from forums. My problem is with the "Always always always talk to a lawyer." Maybe you have enough money to talk to a lawyer every time you have a legal question and see a doctor every time you have any kind of malady, but not everyone does.
And I guess part of my complaint is just that such an important service is so expensive. It leads to a situation where the well off can hire lawyers to consult them on things like employment contracts, but those with less money can't, which makes it easier to exploit them.
It's sometimes okay to get legal advice from a forum, but in this context, someone needs to review:
1) The employment agreement
2) Understand the degree to which the specific project overlaps with the employer's business
3) Etc.
That takes a conversation you don't want to have online.
But yes, I definitely to seek legal advice from forums, Nolo books, and similar. Self-serve law is not a bad idea in most cases, despite advice to the contrary. Just not in THIS case.
If this isn't a situation to consult a lawyer on, then I don't know what is. He needs an IP lawyer with notions of employment law of the jurisdiction he's in.
If a company wants to formally acquire the rights to the IP.. it's safe to say it's worth something.
Having gone through this myself, I agree with #1, it’s sometimes hard to find the right lawyer. But I guess that means start looking now.
Your #2 reason is tricky because individuals who need the advice to seek out a lawyer already don’t understand the value of having a lawyer, so they have no way to gauge the financial cost of hiring one. That makes a lawyer seem very expensive, when in reality sometimes the risk of not having one is much greater than the cost.
A few years ago I had a side project I wanted to turn into a company, but not enough money to do it full time. So I applied for a job. The employment contract they wanted me to sign had a non-compete that was vague enough that my side project would be in conflict with my job.
I was very worried about spending $2k to hire a lawyer to write an exclusion clause into my employment contract. It seemed like a lot of money to me. But I did it, and for the money I got a single paragraph of text that excluded my company from ever being considered “competition”. (Actually the real value was not the text, it was that my employer knew the text was written by an employment lawyer, so they accepted it and didn’t push back.) Later I left that job to start my own company, and then sold it a few years after that. Without the clause, I could have risked the entire thing. In retrospect, it was some of the best money I ever spent, worth every penny.
The problem is the programmer thing just isn't comparable - knowing a little bit about the law isn't like knowing a little bit about web development. No one who is not a lawyer has the ability to get qualified to handle legal issues within the time frame they would need to for a legal issue at hand. Beyond that, with legal issues, you can't take back your mistakes - if you get armchair legal advice and it turns out to be bad, you've probably irreparably harmed your prospects in the negotiation/case. If you mess up web development, it's not a big deal.
The cost argument is a fair one, and I think that's worth considering. In this case, though, OP has indicated that this is a project that he feels has some amount of value, so it's worth spending $300-500 for a consultation with a lawyer. I'd try to look at it from an expected value perspective - even if paying $500 only has a small chance of improving the outcome of your negotiation/case, if the value of the thing you're negotiating over is $25000, it's worth spending. If the value of the thing is $600, then don't bother.
In terms of finding a lawyer, upcounsel.com, avvo.com or referrals from friends are good places to go.
He gave me terrific advice on a similar issue many years back, and I've gone to him a few times since. I've never retained him: our conversations were always about knowing how to interpret employment contracts, understanding options, and coming up with a negotiation strategy. After those consults, I could go it myself.
A good lawyer won't drag you into litigation. Good lawyers are rare, but the goal should always be to appear professional and to preserve relationships. If you have the rights to your code, you should be able to maintain them without burning relationships with your job. If you don't, you should hand the rights over without a fight (or negotiate for rights, but understanding you'll need to compromise something in return). In either case, you'd like to keep working there, you'd like good references later, and you'd like your employer to stay in your network.
You can't do that unless you understand your legal rights, and unless you have an idea of what tactics you should take.
A good lawyer will run you $300-$600 for a conversation (1-2 hours). A bad lawyer will escalate to a conflict, and run you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Keep in mind law varies by jurisdiction. I don't know where OP is, so this recommendation may be moot. I've worked with many lawyers. I have no conflict-of-interest (my relationship with Bauer is limited to a small number of ~1-hour consults).
The difference is if you try to make a website yourself and you screw it up you're out a few hours and maybe a few tens of dollars at most. There's also very little you can do wrong that can't be fixed or undone later.
If you screw up your legal diy the consequences are much much worse, and often unfixable.
You don’t need javascript to build a website. You don’t need a doctor to solve every health problem. And you don’t need a lawyer to resolve every conflict between people.
Eg. Where would the internet be if only programmers built websites?
Given some responses to this I will happily clarify. If you are in the united states the state you live in will have a state bar website where you can find attorneys in your area that specialize in different types of law. A number of people here have talked about the idea of talking to an IP lawyer. I think in this case I would recommend talking to an employment attorney. Most attorneys will give you an initial consult for free and then tell you what it would cost to move forward.
