I was terminated from my job a month ago. I found a new job the next week. Does a no compete hold water in this situation?

Sorry, but the best answer you're going to be able to get without sitting down with a lawyer is "maybe".  Here's why - non-compete agreements are disfavored in the law because, as you point out, they can keep people from making a living.  They also diminish competition in the market place for ideas and prices, ie we want people who can build a better or cheaper mousetrap to do so.  That said, the law will protect a business from employees stealing its secrets and using those secrets in the marketplace against it.  So the law says that if an employer has a protetable interest in trade secrets, it can enforce a non-compete against its former employees, but only to the extent that non-compete is narrowly draft to protect those interests and no more.  In my experience, employers often over-use non-competes or draft them too broadly, sometimes out of ignorance as to what the law will allow and sometimes in a deliberate attempt to elimiinate competition in their marketplace.  To know whether the agreement is enforceable, you will need to sit down with an attorney experienced in non-competes and discuss what trade secrets your employer might have that merit protection, whether or not you already knew those secret when you signed the document or whether the employer did not reveal those secrets to you until after you signed the document.  Assuming you identifiy protectable trade secrets, then you and the attorney must determine whether or not the non-compete is overbroad in time, geographic area, or scope of restricted activity.  For example if the employer only operates in a certain city or portion of the state, the law may not enforce a non-compete that purports to restrict the former employee's activities state-wide or nation-wide.  If the trade secret is time-sensitive (e.g. a price list that changes every 6 weeks), the law will not enforce a non-compete that is longer than neessary to protect that secret.  If the employer is the business of manufacturing a gadget that does a certain task and the former employee goes to work in a business that does that same task via software, the law may not enforce the non-compete because the employee's new employment does not directly compete with the old employer's activities.  Finally, if there is no protectable interest that can be identified, the law would strike down the entire non-compete. Look on this (lawyers.com) website for attorneys near you that practice in the area of non-compete agreements or look on the website for the Texas Board of Legal Specialization (TBLS.org) for attorneys that are board certified in labor and employment law. Good luck.