[codingdave]

Lawyers sending letters to discourage actions they do not like are fairly standard. I've had attorneys tell me that if you are not getting letters like this, you aren't making enough of an impact. And to be clear, this is just a letter - tossing one of these out just to see if it works is an easy tactic because many smaller organizations are terrified of litigation, and will cave to demands even if there is no legal basis for them.

Do take the letters seriously... determine whether there are valid legal claims presented. But if there are not, it is a scare tactic, so don't stress over it.

[trentnix]

This. Many lawyers threaten and posture for a living. Don't let their empty threats bully you into submission if you've done nothing wrong.

[shuaavi]

Palo Alto can easily cause us to put 500K USD into legal fees, and I guess they thought that we'll bail out due to this empty threat. We chose not to.

[pas]

Why/how would they cause you to put that much into legal fees? You don't need to hire an attorney, and probably you can hire anyone (with a legal bar license), right? Just hire the cheapest one. Sure that might not be the brightest tactic, but claiming that they can "cause" this is very strange. (You might even get someone to file motions for you pro bono.)

[otterley]

> Just hire the cheapest one.

Do you know what they call the person who graduated at the bottom of their law school class? "Counselor."

Do not hire the cheapest lawyer you can find. The amount of work required to analyze this situation is a few hours at most; and the hourly-rate difference between a good lawyer and a bad lawyer is going to be far less than what it will cost you if you get bad advice.

> You might even get someone to file motions for you pro bono

No attorney worth a damn is going to provide a commercial entity pro bono representation.

[pavel_lishin]

How do you tell whether you're doing something wrong or not without spending money on your own lawyer?

[trentnix]

That presumes a lawyer will give you good legal advice. I've been given poor legal advice before by a lawyer, and been given even worse tactical advice. I've gone against a lawyer's recommendations before when their explanation and recommendation did not jive with my reading and understanding.

You should educate yourself and seek counsel if you believe you need it. Because ultimately the situation is no different than getting a physician's opinion or a consultant's opinion or whatever else - you seek that expertise because you feel you need it. And usually that means you have to pay for it. But a lawyer's opinion, even if it's a good opinion, doesn't inoculate you from being sued or threatened or whatever else an antagonizing party may do.

But don't freak out. Everyone is terrified when they get their first lawyer letter. Everyone is outraged when they get their second. And when they get their third (or fourth or however long it takes to learn), they use it for toilet paper.

[thaumasiotes]

> But a lawyer's opinion, even if it's a good opinion, doesn't inoculate you from being sued or threatened or whatever else an antagonizing party may do.

Actually, "reliance on advice of counsel" is a valid legal defense. It's an interesting legal privilege lawyers have given themselves.

[otterley]

(IAAL but this is not legal advice.)

Reliance on advice of counsel is not a blanket defense against any arbitrary crime you could be charged with or civil liability you might face. It is only a defense in a certain limited set of circumstances; and it also requires you to waive attorney-client privilege.

See https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti... for a good, if dated, overview of the law.

[ryandrake]

Can you expand on how one would educate themselves on this (besides getting a law degree), and how one would determine that they need legal counsel, besides having this vague feeling that they need it? Are there some rules of thumb that a normal, non-lawyer can follow to roughly gauge the seriousness of a written legal threat?

[trentnix]

Hopefully someone more educated than me will chime in, but inevitably a C&D or some other lawyer letter will reference law (for me, it was trademark law) or will reference a contract. I've gotten both kinds, and found that it was easier to educate myself regarding the threats made in reference to the contract than in reference to the law.

Once you do some searching you'll get a better idea of whether you need legal counsel. And just because you receive a letter doesn't mean you need to respond no matter what absurd timeline the demanding letter might have suggested.

Eventually they'll have to put up (and file a lawsuit) or shut up.

[otterley]

A good rule of thumb is that when an attorney sends you a cease and desist letter, you should hire an attorney to read it and give you advice on what to do and/or how to respond -- especially if you are inclined not to assent to the demands made.

I know this, not only as an attorney today, but as someone who (before I got my law degree) did not do this and paid a very high price for my immaturity. Hiring an attorney could have saved me many thousands of dollars.

[CapitalistCartr]

My wife went to law school. I know lots of lawyers. The spread between Justin (first in his class by a fat margin), and the bottom, oh, say, quarter of the class, is brutal.

[victorhooi]

Sorry, I might have missed some context here - but which Justin are you referring to?

[no_wizard]

Question I have...

How bad is that lower quarter? Can you quantify that in any way?

[CapitalistCartr]

Justin relishes a fight; he's confident. He's creative in his thinking. Many lawyers are paper pushers. They file the right documents, fill out the right forms, but they can't think tactically to save their lives. They're never going to change the outcome of a case.

[wldcordeiro]

Right? Just because it's normal for C&Ds to be sent doesn't mean it should be because they're obviously weaponized by large organizations.

[RIMR]

Legality isn't my concern. It's intent.

Their intent is to prevent their customers and potential customers from hearing criticisms of their products.

That alone is enough to make me never do business with them again. Legality means nothing, this was a breach of ethics and honesty.

[soumyadeb]

Most likely than not, they have legal basis for what they are asking for. Check with your lawyers and if they agree, you should just accept and move on. The distraction (and cost) of having to fight a legal battle to have a comparison page on your website is just not worth it for most startups.

We are a tiny company building an open-source alternative to an existing SaaS app and we have received two such letters in the last 6 months. First time I just replied in an email, second time I had the lawyers respond to create a legal trail. I don't think we were at fault in both the cases but it is still not worth it.

[shuaavi]

We checked VERY thoroughly. They don't have legal basis. Federal law specifically prohibit clauses that prevent open reviews. It is dubbed the 'yelp law'

[otterley]

I would double check that legal advice (assuming you actually consulted a competent attorney who specializes in this law). See my analysis elsewhere in this discussion.

[koheripbal]

> Most likely than not, they have legal basis for what they are asking for... you should just accept and move on... The distraction (and cost) of having to fight a legal battle

This is not reasonable advice. 95% of lawyer's letters that we receive are without legal merit and do not lead to any legal action if ignored. You can generally tell which ones have merit. If you're not certain, sure you can ask a lawyer - but even asking a lawyer costs money, so don't bother for letters that are obviously attempts at intimidation.

[bokohut]

This too.

As a serial entrepreneur that is the brains in building the entire hardware and software of several acquired systems I have been the recipient of multiple such certified delivery cease and desists. While my case does not match that of this topics point mine was threating to inform me to stay out of the industry which clearly I did not, just a scare tactic without grounds because they knew of my talents. My most recent exit I secured a legally binding document with the new owner that states I cannot be pursued for anything by either the parent company or any future subsidiary. It has been crickets.

As others say your best option is to read and understand your situation since you lived it as no one will care more about it than you, not even a lawyer you are paying but they will gladly take your money, again from experience.

[kobalsky]

> Do take the letters seriously... determine whether there are valid legal claims presented. But if there are not, it is a scare tactic, so don't stress over it.

Is the validity of the legal claim that relevant? If deep pockets co. wants to sue you into oblivion can't they just drag the trial forever and make sure you go bankrupt from legal fees before reaching a judgement?

[kmeisthax]

Depends on the jurisdiction and tort. America is notably hostile to attorney fee shifting, to the point where we literally call it the French Rule. If you're sued for something baseless you're expected to have the money to defend yourself. Copyright is unique in that fee shifting is regularly granted in the US, but even then it's limited to specific amounts of hours billed at a reasonable rate as determined by a court. You don't get to just hire the most expensive attorney with the expectation that they can make the nuisance suit go away and then collect from the plaintiff rather than the defendant.

[azernik]

Depends how invalid the legal claim is. There are multiple points a judge can say "this is such obvious BS I'm cutting it off now" ("summary judgment").