3 ms·

From a British perspective this sound like madness. We have a tradition of referring baseless legal threats to the precedent of Arkell v Pressdram.

ealexhudson 5y ago
A non-baseless threat so referred would land you in deep trouble, however. I think the core issue here is not being able to distinguish the two cases easily.
- mattbee 5y ago
  Absolutely, and I'm sure this is very industrially & culturally-specific experience. I don't blame OP for not being able to distinguish. (though I wouldn't have even read the whole email before hitting delete) Personally I've told some expensive solicitors to get lost successfully, and for some I've engaged my own & spent tens of thousands. I suppose I tended to be aware of legal risks that I was running in my old business. But lawyers are trying to get a result for their client as fast as possible. So if they've sent you something full of hand-waving jargon, they're either not very good at communicating (& not the kind of lawyer used to taking things further) or they're trying to intimidate because they've not got anything substantial to say. Also (in my xp) it's rare that a lawyer won't clarify something they've written unless they're being paid to intimidate, and (in the UK at least) a judge will have short shrift with a plaintiff if pre-trial communications were insubstantial and intimidatory. You can't just be summoned to court with no idea what you did wrong.
luckylion 5y ago
From what I understand, that case wasn't necessarily baseless, but they drew media attention to it by publishing the letters. Arkell withdrew his claims following _that_. For most people, if you pull them into the spot light, you will quickly shut them up. That does not make their legal threats baseless.
kstrauser 5y ago
I did exactly that in my open reply to the same letter! https://blog.freeradical.zone/post/ccpa-scam-2021-12/ https://blog.freeradical.zone/post/ccpa-scam-2021-12/

ealexhudson 5y ago

A non-baseless threat so referred would land you in deep trouble, however. I think the core issue here is not being able to distinguish the two cases easily.

mattbee 5y ago
Absolutely, and I'm sure this is very industrially & culturally-specific experience. I don't blame OP for not being able to distinguish. (though I wouldn't have even read the whole email before hitting delete) Personally I've told some expensive solicitors to get lost successfully, and for some I've engaged my own & spent tens of thousands. I suppose I tended to be aware of legal risks that I was running in my old business. But lawyers are trying to get a result for their client as fast as possible. So if they've sent you something full of hand-waving jargon, they're either not very good at communicating (& not the kind of lawyer used to taking things further) or they're trying to intimidate because they've not got anything substantial to say. Also (in my xp) it's rare that a lawyer won't clarify something they've written unless they're being paid to intimidate, and (in the UK at least) a judge will have short shrift with a plaintiff if pre-trial communications were insubstantial and intimidatory. You can't just be summoned to court with no idea what you did wrong.

luckylion 5y ago

From what I understand, that case wasn't necessarily baseless, but they drew media attention to it by publishing the letters. Arkell withdrew his claims following _that_. For most people, if you pull them into the spot light, you will quickly shut them up. That does not make their legal threats baseless.

kstrauser 5y ago

I did exactly that in my open reply to the same letter! https://blog.freeradical.zone/post/ccpa-scam-2021-12/ https://blog.freeradical.zone/post/ccpa-scam-2021-12/