Legal Question in Employment Law in Washington

Re: Employment agreement question

"At will" is the law unless other terms are expressed in a contract. In your case, a contract would be in place and "at will" would not apply for the duration of the contract. Your new employer feels you are important enough that they want to use a stick and a carrot to keep you in place. The carrot is the retention bonus and the promise of employment absent compelling circumstances (I assume something like misconduct of the employee or bankruptcy of the company?) The stick should also be spelled out in the contract, so you will have to look there. I assume you lose the retention bonus, but there may also be other damages spelled out.

To be clear, they cannot MAKE you stay in the job; you are free to go at any time. (That question was resolved by constitutional amendment following the Civil War.) The question is what economic damages may apply if you go.

If it is not clear from the contract what their recourse would be, have an attorney review the contract for you. Your new employer may also be willing to explain their understanding of what the damages may be if you ask.

If you have a non-work related reason why you may want to leave (such as an aging relative who may need long term care, for example), they may be willing to negotiate a clause to cover that situation. If you are concerned about deterioration of your work situation, they may (or may not) be willing to negotiate something to cover that. (As an off the wall example, assume you now have the right to take four hours of vacation and go see the Mariners every time they have an afternoon home game, and that means a lot to you. You might try negotiating to have that in. Probably the issues you would want to negotiate would be more substantive, but you get the idea.)

Good luck.