When lawyers don't take each other's demands seriously

The Lawyerist’s post titled 9 Epic Responses To Legal Threats is a must-read for lawyers and people who aren’t really fans of lawyers. My favourites are numbers 4 (Jack Daniels) and 9 (West Orange). Here is a taste of the West Orange reply:

Oh, and just to play along, had you intended for your letter to be taken seriously, even in some small measure, we would have sent in a response something along the following lines:

Non-lawyers tend to imagine that lawyers’ demand letters have some sort of powerful magic, enough to merit the label “Lawyer’s Letter” (you can actually hear the capitalisation when people talk about them). They can be scary when you receive them, especially because the vast majority are heavy handed and aggressive.

As a lawyer, it isn’t difficult to distinguish the letters that have some merit and the letters that are just the expression of a lawyer taking a chance with something. I often have the urge to reply to these letters in less formal language and the responses in this blog post are some of the best I’ve seen and are almost enough to persuade me to return to practice in my law firm just so I can deal with these sorts of demands again.