This article was produced by Maurice Blackburn in commercial partnership with BusinessDay

When most people sign an employment contract they quickly squirrel it away and more often than not forget about it. In fact, it's quite surprising how many people not only forget about it but misplace it altogether. What's a little more worrying is many individuals never really read the contract before they sign it - they're just excited to be starting a new role.

Unfortunately, the upshot of not being able to find the initial contract or having not read it in detail is the employer may have inserted some rather onerous conditions on your ability to work or move freely between roles.

For example, in recent years I've noticed employers are increasingly predisposed to imposing restraints of trade on their employees. They're inserting conditions of employment in contracts restricting employees who leave an organisation from engaging in competitive business activity for a period of time or operating within a particular geographic area. They are also inserting conditions of employment restricting an employee's ability to canvass business of any capacity from anyone who is an existing or prospective client.

While these restraints are quite common, they're often invalid unless they are considered reasonable. They can be too long or too extensive and can go well beyond the legitimate interests of the employer.

For example, I have seen a real estate business in Victoria put a geographic restraint on a former employee that tried to prevent the individual from practising real estate in the whole state rather than a small suburban area.

While many employees know of these restraints and can see they're likely to be invalid we're still seeing employers trying them on. Employers know they might be displaying a degree of imperial overreach, but we often see invalid restraints being passed off by employers as being in their legitimate and reasonable interest.

Bearing this in mind, it's important to get advice from the start. If you're unsure of any restraints written in your employment contract before commencing a new role or conversely, your employer approaches you post-employment, you should get advice immediately.

We have seen clients get letters of demand from employers when they're earning anything from $50K a year to the high six figures. A lot of these clients have a good argument that the restraints are invalid.

What we are seeing is many employers are very often just trying it on. While the restraints are sometimes legitimate, employers often write letters of demand threatening litigation as a first "shot across the bow" in a bid to frighten an employee. People don't like threats and a legal letter sometimes shuts people down especially if it contains speculative and spurious allegations of alleged misuse of confidential information.

The good news is the law looks at restraints in respect of them being reasonable and from an objective point of view rather than the subjective assertion of one party. Although the law of restraints do differ in Victoria and New South Wales they do both address the fundamental issue of reasonableness.

Moreover, these restraints may be seen as valid if an employee receives a benefit for the restraint, such as a specific payment to the employee for the restraint.

Unfortunately, the restraints are commonly sold to the employee as some sort of boilerplate part of the initial contract. Often the problem is they're merely just a cut-and-paste job from another contract. For employees, understanding the restraints can be a little like "wrestling with jelly" which makes it all the more important to seek advice before signing anything at all or if you get a letter of demand.

Kamal Farouque is a principal in Maurice Blackburn's employment practice. Follow Kamal on Twitter: @kfarouque