Russell Beck

Russell Beck is a founder of Beck Reed Riden LLP. He has over 30 years of experience as a complex business, trade secrets, and noncompete litigator, representing clients throughout the country.

Russell represents clients in Massachusetts and nationally, both in litigation and in the prevention and minimization of litigation and litigation risks.

A leading authority on the law of trade secrets, noncompetes, and employee mobility, Russell literally wrote the law, wrote the book, and teaches the course on noncompete law in Massachusetts. He also revised the Massachusetts Uniform Trade Secrets Act. He wrote the books Trade Secrets Law for the Massachusetts Practitioner (1st ed. MCLE 2019) and Negotiating, Drafting, and Enforcing Noncompetition Agreements and Related Restrictive Covenants (6th ed., MCLE, Inc. 2021), teaches the course Trade Secrets and Restrictive Covenants at Boston University School of Law, and co-hosts a podcast on trade secrets and restrictive covenants called Fairly Competing.

He has been quoted and his work cited in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, Fortune, CNBC, and Le Monde, as well as by the White House and the United States Treasury Department. He has also been interviewed on PBS Newshour, On Point (NPR/WBUR), Weekend Edition (NPR), and NECN News, and was featured in the cover story of Super Lawyers New England Magazine.

Russell also founded and chaired Foley & Lardner LLP’s Trade Secret / Noncompete Practice and created and teaches Trade Secrets and Restrictive Covenants at Boston University School of Law. (Boston University’s Intellectual Property program, of which Russell’s course is a part, has been ranked in the top 10 in the country by U.S. News and World Reports.)

Russell also helps clients with the preparation of noncompetition agreements, nondisclosure agreements, no-raid agreements, nonsolicitation agreements, and other restrictive covenants; the performance of trade secret audits and establishment of comprehensive trade secret protection programs; trade secret protection training; and strategizing the on-boarding and off-boarding of employees subject to restrictive covenants who are joining a client from a competitor or leaving a client to join a competitor.

Selected to Super Lawyer’s Top 10 Lawyers in Massachusetts every year since 2020, he has been selected as one of Super Lawyers’ Top 100 Lawyers in New England and Top 100 Lawyers in Massachusetts every year since 2011, featured in the cover story of Super Lawyers New England Magazine, and is included in Best Lawyers and Chambers and Partners, which states, “He is widely considered ‘an expert in his field.’”

In 2019, Russell was named a Lawyer of the Year for 2018 by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Russell has also been named a “Lawyer of the Year, Litigation – Labor and Employment, Boston” for 2022 and 2023 by Best Lawyers. His work is recognized by The Legal 500 United States, helping Beck Reed Riden to be the only small firm selected for inclusion in the Trade Secrets rankings.