Seems like it would be a pretty fun little hustle to create a tiny law firm specializing in racking up some legal fees while suing companies being stupid enough

Seems like it would be a pretty fun little hustle to create a tiny law firm specializing in racking up some legal fees while suing companies being stupid enough to include such illegal noncompete clauses. The actual damages payouts probably wouldn't be great (as, at best, you've got the employee's salary over the period of their unemployment due to thinking the noncompete was binding), but for a trivial amount of work ("Your honor, here's the employer's signature, here's the illegal noncompete clause, No further arguments"), it could be a half decent cash flow for the lawyers. Not sure if it's legal to kick back legal fees to your client, but if so, that might work.