One person's working-out of employment restrictive covenants, written down after a job offer arrived with four paragraphs attached that nobody would explain. Nothing here is legal advice for your situation.
The first question most people ask an employment attorney about a non-compete is what it will cost, and the answer arrives in two shapes that are easy to confuse. One is a fixed price for a document: someone reads your agreement, applies the law of the state that governs it, and sends back a letter. The other is a meter that starts when the call starts. Both are legitimate ways to sell the same expertise, but they produce different objects, and the object is what you are buying. A careful reader checks which one is on offer before agreeing to anything.
The flat fee buys a document with edges
A flat-fee review is priced because its scope is bounded, and the boundary is usually the agreement in front of the lawyer plus whatever facts you supply in writing. What comes back is typically a letter of several pages: a clause-by-clause reading, an assessment of which restrictions look enforceable in the governing state, the duration and geographic scope as a court would likely read them, and a plain statement of what conduct would plainly breach the terms. Ask what the fee includes before you pay. Specifically, ask whether follow-up questions are covered, whether a second read after the employer revises the draft costs extra, and whether the letter is addressed to you or written for possible use with the employer.
The thing a flat fee rarely covers is negotiation. Drafting proposed language, writing to the employer's counsel, or sitting on a call with human resources is separate work, sometimes billed hourly, sometimes as a second fixed package. A review letter that concludes your customer non-solicit is probably enforceable but your two-year nationwide non-compete probably is not will change your posture in the conversation, and that is what you paid for. It will not have the conversation for you.
The hourly consultation buys judgment in real time
An hourly consultation suits a situation that is still moving: you have a competing offer with a deadline, a former employer who has already sent a letter, or facts that need sorting before anyone can say what the clause means. The value is that you can ask follow-ups, describe what your new role actually involves, and get an answer that adjusts as the facts arrive. The cost is that nothing is written down unless you pay for writing it down. Take your own notes, then send a short email summarizing what you heard and asking for a correction if you got it wrong. That email is the closest thing to a record you will have.
Watch the increments. Many firms bill in tenths of an hour, so a two-minute call and a forwarded email are not free, and a string of small exchanges adds up faster than one scheduled hour. Ask for an estimate in hours for the work you have described, and ask to be told before that estimate is exceeded.
What to bring, and why the file matters more than the call
Bring the signed agreement with the signature page, not the recruiter's summary. Bring every version you have, including any offer letter, employee handbook acknowledgment, equity or bonus plan, and separation agreement, because restrictions live in all of them and sometimes contradict each other. Bring your job description, your actual duties, the territory you covered, the accounts you touched, and the new role's written description if you have it. Bring dates: when you signed, when you were promoted, what you received in exchange. A lawyer reading a complete file can tell you something useful in an hour. A lawyer reconstructing the file from memory spends that hour on archaeology, and you pay for it.
The gap between an opinion and a fight
A written opinion is priced like a professional document. Defending a motion for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction is priced like litigation, and the difference is not incremental. Injunction practice compresses discovery, depositions, expert declarations, and a hearing into a matter of weeks, which means a month's work billed in a fortnight. The realistic comparison is a four-figure document against a five- or six-figure defense, and the opinion is often what keeps you out of the second column, because it tells you which accounts to leave alone and which restriction will not survive contact with a judge. The Federal Trade Commission has taken up non-compete practice at the national level, and state courts continue to decide these cases one agreement at a time, which is exactly why a reading of your agreement, in your state, is worth buying early.
Price the document first. If the document says the clause is narrow, enforceable, and easy to comply with, you have bought certainty cheaply, and if it says otherwise, you have bought it before the deadline rather than after the complaint.