Are Non-Competes Enforceable for Therapists and Behavioral Health Staff in Alabama?

Alabama regulates non-competes by statute: Act No. 2015-465, Alabama Code sections 8-1-190 through 8-1-197, effective January 1, 2016, replacing former section 8-1-1.

An employer can enforce a written, signed covenant if it fits the statute's exceptions and protects a recognized interest.

• Allowed: an employee of a commercial entity may agree not to compete in a specified geographic area while the employer carries on a like business there; two years or less is presumed reasonable — a presumption, not a cap.
• Allowed: a non-solicit of the employer's current customers; 18 months — or as long as post-separation consideration is paid, whichever is greater — presumed reasonable.
• Protectable: relationships with specific existing or prospective patients and clients, and the goodwill of a professional practice.
• Required: a writing, signed by all parties, supported by adequate consideration.
• The wildcard: a case-law "professional exemption" applied to physicians — an open question for counselors, social workers, psychologists and BCBAs.

How Alabama compares with other states — including the ones with their own healthcare- and mental-health-specific restrictions — is covered in our guide to non-competes nationally.

The starting point is section 8-1-190(a): every contract restraining someone from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business is void except as that section allows.

Everything depends on fitting a section 8-1-190(b) exception.

The employee exception, section 8-1-190(b)(4), covers an employee of a commercial entity who agrees not to compete within a specified geographic area while the employer carries on a like business there, subject to reasonable restraints of time and place.

An Alabama restrictive covenant must be reduced to writing, signed by all parties, and supported by adequate consideration (section 8-1-192).

In a dispute, a court may reform an overbroad or overlong restraint to preserve the protectable interest, but a restraint that fits no section 8-1-190(b) exception can be voided in its entirety (section 8-1-193).

The party seeking enforcement carries the burden of proof on every element (section 8-1-194), and remedies include injunctions, actual or lawful liquidated damages, and attorneys' fees or costs where the contract provides for them (section 8-1-195).

Alabama declares the article fundamental public policy, and it applies instead of another state's law where that law would violate the article (section 8-1-197) — a choice-of-law clause naming a friendlier state does not lift the covenant out of it.

Start with what Alabama does not have: no section of the article is specific to counselors, social workers, psychologists, behavior analysts or other health professionals — no mental-health carve-out and none for nurses or prescribers.

Section 8-1-196, the statute's only professional provision, is a savings clause: nothing in the article eliminates any professional exemption already recognized by Alabama law.

That preserved exemption is where the risk lives.

In Odess v. Taylor (1968), the Alabama Supreme Court refused to enforce a non-compete against a physician, reasoning that the doctor-patient relationship is one of personal confidence and a patient is not a "customer."

Friddle v. Raymond (1991), an Alabama Supreme Court decision quoted in Benchmark v. Barnes, supplies the test: professional training, skill and experience required, the delicate nature of the services, and the ability and need to make instantaneous decisions.

In Benchmark Medical Holdings v. Barnes (2004), a federal district court in Alabama applying that line held licensed physical therapists to be professionals not subject to non-competition agreements, while noting Alabama's appellate courts had not decided the question.

It draws a line that matters: the exemption protects the professional's own practice — hands-on care, supervising clinical work, solo practice, soliciting referral sources — not purely business activities such as managing or passively investing in other clinicians' practices.

Treat any psychiatrist non-compete in Alabama as seriously at risk: psychiatrists are physicians.

For counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists and BCBAs, no Alabama appellate decision we found decides whether the exemption reaches them — the question would turn on how a court applies the Friddle factors to the role, case by case — so treat it as open and ask Alabama employment counsel before you rely on a covenant.

Section 8-1-191(a) expressly lists what a covenant may protect: commercial relationships with specific existing or prospective customers, patients, vendors or clients, and the goodwill of a professional practice.

The limits cut both ways.

Job skills alone are not a protectable interest (section 8-1-191(b)), and employer-paid training counts only when it is specialized and unique, involves substantial expenditure directed at that employee, and is set forth in writing as the consideration for the restraint (section 8-1-191(a)(5)).

On the dimensions: two years or less carries the reasonableness presumption, and the covenant must specify a geographic area where you actually carry on a like business — define it by where you operate.

Fit an exception first; argue reasonableness second.

Non-solicits get their own statutory exception.

Section 8-1-190(b)(5) lets an employee agree not to solicit the employer's current customers, with 18 months — or as long as post-separation consideration is paid, whichever is greater — presumed reasonable.

Because the protectable-interest list expressly names patients and clients, this is the tool that maps most directly onto a behavioral health caseload.

A non-solicit is narrower than a non-compete: the clinician can keep practicing, even nearby, but cannot solicit your current customers.

Whether a client non-solicit holds up against an exempt professional was not resolved by the cases reviewed here.

Employee non-solicits — barring a departing clinician from recruiting your staff — are a different restraint, and the exceptions summarized here cover customer solicitation; how Alabama law treats them was not researched for this page, so have counsel review any recruiting clause.

The ethics-code side of client transitions is covered in our guide to non-solicitation clauses.

Draft to the statute: define the geographic area by where you actually carry on a like business, keep the term at two years or less unless counsel has a reason, and tie the covenant to the interests the statute names — your specific patients and clients, and the practice's goodwill.

The burden of proving enforceability sits on the party seeking to enforce, so a vague covenant is your problem to prove.

For counseling, social work and BCBA roles where the professional exemption is an open question, lean on the narrower tools: an 18-month client non-solicit, confidentiality of client information, and a clear client-transition policy for departures.

If your real worry is recovering training costs from a clinician who leaves quickly, that is a different instrument with its own limits — see our guide to training repayment agreements.

Alabama is a state where a well-drafted non-compete is presumptively available — draft it to Alabama's statute and have Alabama employment counsel review it, rather than pulling a generic template.