Restrictive covenants are proven means of limiting competition and need to be understood by counselors. The authors consider the American Counseling Association's (ACA) position on noncompetition agreements between employers and employees in light of case law from other service professions and conclude that ACA members are uninformed and available sources of information (i.e., ACA Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice, ACA, 1995) do not provide needed information. The absence of information about this important topic puts members at risk in an increasingly competitive private practice market. The authors propose guidelines for responding to this issue.

A noncompetition agreement is a contract between employer and employee prohibiting the practice of a trade or profession for a specified time or within a specified region upon an employee's leaving an employer's hire (A. Valiulis, 1985). The authors assessed American Mental Health Counselor Association members' knowledge of the legal bases for these contracts and their agreement with the legal opinions and also assessed the degree of similarity and dissimilarity between members' knowledge of and agreement with the legal opinions. Results showed that counselors are better prepared to look after the welfare of their clients than their own employment interests. Implications for counselor training are discussed.