On September 6, Jessica Bell couldn’t wait any longer. Rumors of layoffs at ShareFile, a unit of Citrix Systems, a 28-year-old software maker valued at $12 billion, had been swirling through the summer. A virtual sales engineer ShareFile and a single mom with an 18-year-old daughter, Bell had started looking for new jobs as the whispers persisted. “I had to look elsewhere to make sure I could feed myself and my family,” she says. Bell gave notice to her manager and was walked out of the building later that day.

The night before, Bell had received an offer letter from a ten-year-old Silicon Valley startup called Egnyte; she accepted and her first day there was September 18. A competitor to Box and Dropbox – and to ShareFile – that’s raised more than $60 million in funding, Egnyte operated in the file sharing market, too. CEO Vineet Jain declared the official opening of Egnyte’s new sales office in Raleigh, the same town as ShareFile’s headquarters, the following day: “Planting a new flag… in Raleigh!”

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Egnyte’s ace in the hole: the non-competes wouldn’t carry weight at all under California law, which the company argues applies for its employees even if they live out of state. That helps explain why Egnyte filed its lawsuit first to establish California as the venue for its complaint. According the Stanford Law School professor Mark Lemley, such a “race to the courthouse” isn’t uncommon. “This is a problem that happens because California has an aggressive rule that inhibits non-competes,” he says. “There’s a fight over which place is the right place to litigate the case.”

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While both suits could continue separately of each other, the company that files first often takes precedent, says Lemley. “The lesson that lawyers in California tell their clients is: If you’ve got a non-compete and are leaving for a California company, get to court first.”