After remaining loyal employees throughout the recession, many workers in the improving job market are developing a wandering eye.

But before jumping ship, some may want to take a moment to consider a document that could hold them back, and that they may not even remember signing: a non-compete agreement.

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Such contracts, which typically restrict employees from going to work for a competitor after they leave their current company, are being tested more often as the job market rebounds, employment attorneys say. There are no hard figures on the number of companies requiring workers to sign the agreements, but experts say they are becoming more common not only for executives and salespeople, but for a range of jobs in industries like tech and medicine, as well as service-oriented fields. Workers who breach the contracts could face a legal injunction stopping them from working at the company that wants to hire them, and some workers could be sued for damages if they bring over clients or share a company’s sensitive information.

As more workers try to wriggle out of the agreements, the issue is being tackled in lawsuits and proposed legislation. “Now it’s everywhere,” says Susan Trench, a Miami-based litigation partner with Arnstein & Lehr, an employment and business law firm.

While most states will broadly enforce non-compete agreements, which are regulated, many are introducing limitations on when the contracts can be used. In New Jersey, for instance, state lawmakers have proposed a bill that would make non-compete agreements unenforceable for anyone who also qualifies for unemployment. An Illinois appellate court ruled last month that employees must work for a company for two years before a non-compete agreement would be considered enforceable. States like Minnesota, Massachusetts and Virginia have also introduced legislation that would limit such agreements. “Corporations are overplaying their hands in state courts” and causing states to create additional restrictions, says R. Scott Oswald, managing principal of the Employment Law Group, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm.

With technology making it easier for people to share sensitive information, some companies are also using the covenants as an additional way to protect trade secrets, says Molly Joyce, a partner who specializes in non-compete contracts at law firm Seyfarth Shaw. Companies consider the deals necessary to protect clients and retain their best employees, she says.

Critics say that by stifling competition, the agreements actually hold back the economy, preventing workers from moving on and earning bigger salaries. Oswald argues competitive workers are more prone to move to states that don’t enforce such agreements and give employees more control over where to work. Companies have other ways to protect trade secrets, such as non-disclosure agreements and non-solicitation agreements that restrict workers from sharing content or stealing customers after they leave a company.

Often, the agreements don’t come to the fore until after a person has already changed jobs. Other times, workers may decide not to accept an offer because they are worried about breaching the contract, lawyers say. But some workers can proactively challenge the agreements—and win—or negotiate the contracts before they sign, attorneys say.

For starters, workers should ask for time to review the agreements with a lawyer, experts say. “The most common mistake is people aren’t always aware of what they signed,” says Joyce. ”Look before you leap.”

Many people are asked to sign non-compete covenants on the first day of work, but if they aren’t granted more time to look it over and possibly negotiate, that could make it easier for the contract to be dismissed in court, says Oswald.

Employees should also talk to an attorney about how likely it is that the contract would be upheld in court, experts say. In some states, an agreement will be thrown out for being too broad, while some courts will rein in the conditions by shortening the time period that workers would have to stay away from competitors or by cutting down the distance that an employee must travel before being able to find a similar role in the field, says Trench. If workers find that the agreements will be too broad to enforce, they can use that as an argument to negotiate for a more specific contract, she says.

Workers should also use the agreement as leverage for negotiating better compensation, pros say. If one needs to sign the agreement in order to keep a job, it should be paired with a raise or bonus, says Oswald. And workers can ask their employers to pay them during the time period that they won’t be able to work for a competitor if they are let go for non-performance reasons, he says.

Those workers who have already signed non-compete agreements but feel ready to change jobs should be honest with their potential employers about the restrictions, says Dan McCoy, a litigation partner for Fenwick & West in Mountain View, Calif. That company may be more willing to challenge the agreement on behalf of the person they want to hire if they’re aware of the issue from the start, he says. Otherwise, the worker could be hit with a legal injunction and fees, leaving them without a job at either company, he says.