Severance review, non-competes, offer letters and employment agreements for New Jersey employees and employers — on a flat fee agreed before the work starts, not an hourly meter.
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New Jersey employment law is not New York employment law with different letterhead. The state has its own anti-discrimination statute, its own wage-payment rules, and a body of case law on restrictive covenants that reaches different answers than a New York court would on the same facts. Whether you are signing a document, negotiating one, or drafting one for your company, the governing law is what matters — not where the business is headquartered. We work both sides: employees reviewing what they have been handed, and employers putting agreements in place they can actually enforce. Most New Jersey employment attorneys bill hourly for this work; we quote a flat fee before starting.
A severance agreement asks you to release claims under New Jersey's employment statutes, so what those statutes give you determines what the release is actually worth.
The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination is broader than its federal counterpart: it reaches more protected characteristics, applies to employers of any size rather than the 15-employee federal floor, and allows a longer filing window. That matters when you are deciding what a release is worth, because the rights being released are wider in New Jersey than most people assume.
New Jersey courts enforce non-competes, but they test them. A covenant has to protect a legitimate business interest, be reasonable in duration and geography, and not impose undue hardship or harm the public. Courts will narrow an overbroad clause rather than strike it wholesale, which cuts both ways: an employer cannot rely on aggressive drafting, and an employee cannot assume an overreaching clause is simply void.
We cover the enforceability test, the blue-pencil rule and the pending 2026 ban in detail in are non-competes enforceable in New Jersey?
If you are reviewing a restrictive covenant before signing, that is the cheapest moment to change it. Once a covenant is being enforced, the question is no longer what the clause should say but what a court will do with what it already says.
A severance agreement is a release. In exchange for payment, you give up claims — often including claims you have not identified yet. The number is the part everyone looks at; the terms that matter most are usually elsewhere: the scope of the release, non-disparagement, cooperation obligations, references, and how equity or bonus is treated on the way out.
New Jersey also limits non-disclosure provisions in agreements involving discrimination, retaliation or harassment claims. A clause that would be enforceable in another state may not be here.
On the employer side, the same statute is the reason a template pulled from another jurisdiction is risky. We draft separation agreements that hold up under New Jersey law — a release that is actually effective, consideration that supports it, and restrictive covenants scoped so a court will enforce them rather than rewrite them.
New Jersey applies a strict ABC test that presumes employment unless all three prongs are satisfied. We raise this when drafting or reviewing independent-contractor agreements, because a document that assumes contractor status without meeting the test creates exposure for the company and uncertainty for the worker.
An employment agreement governs the whole working relationship, and it exists at every level — not only for executives. For a senior hire it may be a heavily negotiated document covering compensation structure, equity vesting and severance triggers. For most people it is a short offer letter plus the company's standard policies. The level of detail differs; the legal effect of what is written does not.
Most people sign without reading past the salary. The terms that create problems later are the ones that look like boilerplate at the time: at-will language, arbitration clauses, assignment of intellectual property, notice periods, and what happens to unvested equity if you leave or are let go. Those clauses bind a first-year analyst exactly as they bind a vice president.
For companies, we draft the other half of that exchange: offer letters, employment agreements, contractor agreements and the handbook policies they reference. The goal is a document that says what you meant, survives a challenge, and does not need to be renegotiated every time you hire.
You get a quote before any work starts, based on the document and the question — not an hourly estimate that moves. For a severance or offer-letter review that means the read, a written summary of what the terms actually do, a call to talk through options, and suggested redlines where negotiation is realistic. For drafting work on the company side it means the document, the revision round, and a walk-through of the clauses that carry the risk. Our employment work is transactional — documents and negotiation. If a matter turns out to need litigation, we refer it out.
We handle both, which means we are usually being asked which state's law applies before anything else. Plenty of people live on one side of the river and work on the other, and the answer is rarely the state on the letterhead. The choice-of-law clause in your agreement is not automatically the answer — New Jersey courts will disregard a contractual choice of another state's law in some circumstances, particularly where it would defeat a protection the NJLAD provides.
For a broader comparison of how we work across both states, see our New York employment lawyer page, and for the transactional side of a New Jersey move, our New Jersey real estate lawyer page.
We handle employment documents for clients across the state, with the heaviest concentration in the northern counties nearest our Englewood office — Bergen, Hudson, Essex and Passaic. Because the work is document-based rather than court-based, the county you are in rarely changes the engagement: the governing law is New Jersey's, and most of it happens by email and video.
Cross-border situations are common and worth flagging early. A New Jersey resident working for a Manhattan employer, or a New Jersey company hiring remote staff in New York, raises a choice-of-law question before anything else. Being admitted in both states is the reason we can answer it in the same conversation rather than referring half the matter out.
Earlier than most people do. The cheapest moment to change a document is before it is signed — a restrictive covenant can be narrowed in negotiation but is expensive to challenge afterwards, and a severance deadline is usually negotiable until you have accepted it.
For employers, the equivalent moment is before the template goes out to the tenth hire. A clause that was copied from another state, or drafted for a different role, tends to surface as a problem at exactly the moment you need it to work.
Clear pricing, fast answers, and no surprises on the invoice.
Yes, but they are tested. A New Jersey court will ask whether the covenant protects a legitimate business interest, whether its duration and geographic reach are reasonable, and whether it imposes undue hardship on the employee or harms the public. Courts can narrow an overbroad clause rather than void it, so neither side should assume the drafted language is the final answer.
It depends on what the agreement covers and your age. Federal law gives workers 40 and over a 21-day consideration period and a 7-day revocation window for agreements releasing age claims. Outside that, the deadline is whatever the employer sets — which is usually negotiable, and worth asking about before the clock runs.
Yes. Unlike Title VII, which applies to employers with 15 or more employees, the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination applies regardless of employer size. It also covers a broader set of protected characteristics than federal law.
Not necessarily the one named in the contract. New Jersey courts will decline to apply another state's law where doing so would defeat a protection New Jersey policy provides — NJLAD rights in particular. Where you actually work, where the employer operates, and what the clause is being used to accomplish all matter.
Yes, both. On the employee side we review and negotiate offer letters, employment agreements, restrictive covenants and severance. On the company side we draft the same documents, along with contractor agreements and the policies they reference. Our employment work is transactional; if a matter needs litigation we refer it out.
Send the document over and we will quote a flat fee before doing any work. Free consultation, no obligation.
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