You know your former employee stole your trade secrets. You just do. He's working for the competitor and you need to do something but you can't prove it.

What's the next step? It's a scenario set out by Gregory Snell of Foley & Lardner in this recent blog post. “Bringing suit for trade secret theft without sufficient proof can backfire,” he says. “Trade secrets are valuable and warrant careful protection. But a trade secret theft suit susceptible to becoming a quagmire is often not the best way to do it.”

Instead, Snell says it may be more strategic to sue for breach of fiduciary duty, violation of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act or breach of an agreement to keep information confidential. “With any such claims, injunctive relief, including relief to prohibit use of confidential proprietary and trade secret information, is an option so long as the facts support it,” he says.