I also had a lawsuit with consultancy located in Pennsylvania. Although the state allowed non compete agreement, the judge denied non compete based on the fact that there were no trade secret of the company that would trigger non compete. But we ended up settling with about 18000 payment to consultancy and 11000 payment to lawyer fees totaling about 29000 dollars. The lawyer is the best person who can decide the cheapest and best case of winning or paying least money.