Are Non-Competes Enforceable for Dentists and Dental Staff in Delaware?

A non-compete signed by an associate dentist, hygienist or assistant in Delaware is not automatically void — no statute this research found voids covenants for dental staff — and not automatically enforceable.

A Delaware court decides each one under the framework the Delaware Supreme Court set out in Sunder Energy, LLC v. Jackson (decided December 10, 2024): reasonableness, a legitimate economic interest, and the equities.

That leaves your practice in a middle position.

Your staff get no escape hatch from § 2707 — the physician-only statute names only agreements between or among physicians restricting the practice of medicine, not dentists, hygienists or assistants.

You get no statutory safe harbor either: no mileage cap, no maximum term, no buyout formula in Delaware law as far as this research found.

The covenant's fate rides on your wording.

On the employee's side of the question — what a dentist should weigh before signing — see our guide to dentist non-compete agreements; this page is the employer's Delaware view.

The federal level is settled: as of October 2026, there is no federal rule banning employee non-competes.

The Federal Trade Commission's Non-Compete Clause Rule was set aside in court and never took effect; in a final rule published February 12, 2026, the FTC removed it from the Code of Federal Regulations.

How other states treat dental covenants is covered in our guide to non-competes for dental staff nationally.

On the state side, the research behind this guide found no general Delaware statute governing employee non-competes, which leaves case law.

That is what this review found, not an exhaustive certification of the Delaware Code — have Delaware employment counsel confirm before you rely on it.

The decision that sets out the current test is Sunder Energy, LLC v. Jackson (Delaware Supreme Court, No. 455, 2023, decided December 10, 2024).

It matters twice over: it states the test your covenant must pass, and it confirms a court may refuse to rescue a badly drafted one.

Delaware does have a healthcare-specific non-compete statute, and it excludes you.

Under Delaware Code Title 6, § 2707, a non-compete provision in an agreement between or among physicians that restricts a physician's right to practice medicine in a particular locale, or for a defined period after the agreement ends, is void.

Other provisions, including reasonable damages provisions, remain enforceable.

The statute reaches only agreements "between and/or among physicians" restricting the practice of medicine — not dentists, dental hygienists or other dental staff.

That cuts both ways: a departing dental employee cannot invoke § 2707 to void a covenant, and your practice cannot look to it to bless one — it governs neither.

The statute does not void dental non-competes in Delaware, and it does not lift an associate past the reasonableness test.

No dentist-specific statute — none that this research turned up — means no template either.

Texas, for one, writes the shape of a compliant dentist covenant into its statute — a buyout, a term limit, a mileage radius.

Delaware offers dentists nothing comparable as far as this research found: you draft the terms, and a Delaware court grades them.

Sunder Energy frames the review a Delaware court gives both non-competes and non-solicits:

• Reasonable geographic scope and temporal duration. The clause must be limited in area and time. For a dental practice, draft the geography around where your patients come from and the term around how long the protected relationships last — our research found no Delaware cap for either.
• A legitimate economic interest of the party seeking enforcement. That is you. Name the economic interest you are protecting — for example the patient relationships and referral patterns built with your practice, or specialized training you paid for — and be ready to show the court that the clause advances it.
• A favorable balancing of the equities. The court weighs the equities of enforcement on the specific facts of the departure, alongside the wording of the clause itself.

One more Sunder takeaway shapes how you draft.

The Court of Chancery refused to blue-pencil — rewrite — the overbroad covenants in that case, and the Delaware Supreme Court held that refusal was within its discretion: blue-penciling is discretionary, not required — an employer cannot count on a judge rewriting an overbroad clause.

Practical translation: draft the covenant you can defend exactly as written.

An area far wider than your patient draw, or a term longer than the goodwill you are protecting, invites the outcome Sunder permitted — a court declining to enforce at all rather than trimming it for you.

Delaware courts review non-solicitation clauses under the same framework as non-competes — reasonable scope and duration, a legitimate economic interest, and the equities — so a non-solicit is not a loophole.

It is the narrower ask: it restricts who a former employee may target, not where they may work.

For clause language and state-by-state traps, see our guide to patient and staff non-solicits.

Confidentiality is the quieter protection.

Under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, business information — including a compilation such as a patient list — is a trade secret only if you took reasonable measures to keep it secret and it has independent economic value from not being generally known.

The "reasonable measures" half is the record you build: access-controlled logins, signed confidentiality terms, a patient list nobody exports to a personal address.

The DTSA lets the owner of a misappropriated trade secret related to a product or service in interstate commerce sue in federal court, but an injunction cannot bar a person from entering into an employment relationship, and any conditions on the new job must rest on evidence of threatened misappropriation — not merely on what the person knows.

Confidentiality enforcement reaches the information; it is not a veto on working down the street.

None of this argues against restrictive covenants in Delaware — it argues for writing them as if a skeptical judge will read them, because under Sunder one may decline to rescue a sloppy clause.

• Draft narrow on purpose. Tie the restricted area to your actual patient draw and the term to how long the protected relationships last; assume no court trims either for you.
• Stack the protections. A non-compete, non-solicits and confidentiality terms protect different things — the fight you lose on geography you may still win on misuse of your patient list.
• Price training separately. If the concern is recovering specialized-training costs, training repayment agreements are a different tool with their own rules — see our guide to training repayment agreements.
• Confirm licensure at hire. A covenant only matters if the person can practice — our guide to dentist licensure in Delaware covers what Delaware requires.
• Have Delaware employment counsel review the final language before it goes into an offer packet, not after a court has been asked to enforce it.