A lawyer's favorite phrase might be "it depends."
And when an employer asks whether its customer lists qualify as a
trade secret, "it depends" is often the answer. But even
if it's difficult to definitively state whether customer lists
qualify as a trade secret, the converse—whether customer
lists might not constitute a trade secret—can be
helpful to assessing how much protection a court will provide.
With the advent of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act
("UTSA"), no state categorically denies trade-secrets
status to customer lists. That's because the default definition
of a "trade secret" under the UTSA includes compilations
of information, and several states modified the default definition
to explicitly include customer lists as potential trade secrets.
See, e.g., Conn Gen. Stat. § 35-51(d); O.C.G.A.
§ 10-1-761(4); Or. Rev. Stat. § 646.461(4); 12 Pa. Cons.
Stat. Ann. § 5302. Other states opted to mention that a
"listing of names, addresses, or telephone numbers"
