4 ms·

Reminiscent of the famous Jack Daniels cease and desist. http://brokenpianoforpresident.com/2012/07/19/jack-daniels-lawsuit-the-full-scoop/ http://brokenpianof

Reminiscent of the famous Jack Daniels cease and desist. http://brokenpianoforpresident.com/2012/07/19/jack-daniels-lawsuit-the-full-scoop/ http://brokenpianoforpresident.com/2012/07/19/jack-daniels-l...

janfoeh 11y ago
Well, colour me surprised. This is the first c&d I have come across that actually improves my opinion of the entity releasing it. Thank you for posting this.
- mikeash 11y ago
  It really is excellent. I have to wonder why they aren't all like this. It costs no more to write a nice letter like this one than a mean one as is the standard, and surely they'd realize this approach gets better results!
  - Natsu 11y ago
    Some of the better lawyers do work like this, when possible. This is not the only example I've seen, though I can't seem to find easy examples offhand as it's been a while since I saw one like this. The sad thing is that a lot of people demand an aggressive lawyer and some even brand themselves this way, especially on TV ("we'll _fight_ for you!") so you end up with lots of "attack dog" lawyers, sadly.
  - logicallee 11y ago
    I agree it's excellent, but I don't know how you can say >It costs no more to write a nice letter like this one than a mean one as is the standard when the letter includes a literal offer to transfer cash to its recipient to cover their redesign costs. So yes, it does cost more than any other type of letter :) It still sounds pretty good.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      That's fair. The letter would still be friendly and effective without that offer, though.
    - hobs 11y ago
      That's true, but it would almost definitely be a lot cheaper than paying more laywers. Non-legal remedies are almost ALWAYS what people want.
  - obstinate 11y ago
    A lot of engineers write needlessly aggressively too. Our own Linus Torvalds is famous for it. I too am guilty of this from time to time. It's not a problem unique to lawyers -- humans like to display their power, real or perceived, to "enemies," and it takes a conscious effort to overcome that tendency.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      I have to agree with this. I used to be overly aggressive (I still have a tendency towards this state of being), but I've found its completely counter productive. I recently had a major service completely stop working, and I couldn't get hold of the remote development team to fix it. I had my manager escalate to half the world, but we only did it to get their attention as it literally stopped the Australian side of the business cold - it was an existential threat to our business, and I wasn't about to let it happen. However, once the development team started working on the issue (with upper management on their case), I deliberately ratcheted down the pressure. I did this by stopping all emails from being cc'ed to managers, and I acknowledged that the team working on the project were under pressure but that my only goal was to get a fix and frankly I wasn't interested in blame, only a result. When I took out the managers from the email I also told the devs that I appreciated their work, and from this point I'd work with them cooperatively, and that I would give them space to deal with the problem without constant distractions from managers asking for updates. The dev team worked on the issue and fixed it a few hours before the start of the business day and I verified the fix. Then I sent an email to their team acknowledging the fix, and the effort they had put into it - only at this point I copied all the orginal managers to the email. Yesterday I discovered the dev team had done a review of every case I'd ever opened to them, found some additional problems which they fixed without me asking, and then ensured all open cases got a status update and were being actively worked on. You capture more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. And I felt pretty good!
yellowapple 11y ago
I love how the C&D letter is used as a selling point on the book's Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Piano-President-Patrick-Wensink/dp/1621050203/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3 http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Piano-President-Patrick-Wensink...

janfoeh 11y ago

Well, colour me surprised. This is the first c&d I have come across that actually improves my opinion of the entity releasing it. Thank you for posting this.

mikeash 11y ago
It really is excellent. I have to wonder why they aren't all like this. It costs no more to write a nice letter like this one than a mean one as is the standard, and surely they'd realize this approach gets better results!
- Natsu 11y ago
  Some of the better lawyers do work like this, when possible. This is not the only example I've seen, though I can't seem to find easy examples offhand as it's been a while since I saw one like this. The sad thing is that a lot of people demand an aggressive lawyer and some even brand themselves this way, especially on TV ("we'll _fight_ for you!") so you end up with lots of "attack dog" lawyers, sadly.
- logicallee 11y ago
  I agree it's excellent, but I don't know how you can say >It costs no more to write a nice letter like this one than a mean one as is the standard when the letter includes a literal offer to transfer cash to its recipient to cover their redesign costs. So yes, it does cost more than any other type of letter :) It still sounds pretty good.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    That's fair. The letter would still be friendly and effective without that offer, though.
  - hobs 11y ago
    That's true, but it would almost definitely be a lot cheaper than paying more laywers. Non-legal remedies are almost ALWAYS what people want.
- obstinate 11y ago
  A lot of engineers write needlessly aggressively too. Our own Linus Torvalds is famous for it. I too am guilty of this from time to time. It's not a problem unique to lawyers -- humans like to display their power, real or perceived, to "enemies," and it takes a conscious effort to overcome that tendency.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    I have to agree with this. I used to be overly aggressive (I still have a tendency towards this state of being), but I've found its completely counter productive. I recently had a major service completely stop working, and I couldn't get hold of the remote development team to fix it. I had my manager escalate to half the world, but we only did it to get their attention as it literally stopped the Australian side of the business cold - it was an existential threat to our business, and I wasn't about to let it happen. However, once the development team started working on the issue (with upper management on their case), I deliberately ratcheted down the pressure. I did this by stopping all emails from being cc'ed to managers, and I acknowledged that the team working on the project were under pressure but that my only goal was to get a fix and frankly I wasn't interested in blame, only a result. When I took out the managers from the email I also told the devs that I appreciated their work, and from this point I'd work with them cooperatively, and that I would give them space to deal with the problem without constant distractions from managers asking for updates. The dev team worked on the issue and fixed it a few hours before the start of the business day and I verified the fix. Then I sent an email to their team acknowledging the fix, and the effort they had put into it - only at this point I copied all the orginal managers to the email. Yesterday I discovered the dev team had done a review of every case I'd ever opened to them, found some additional problems which they fixed without me asking, and then ensured all open cases got a status update and were being actively worked on. You capture more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. And I felt pretty good!

yellowapple 11y ago

I love how the C&D letter is used as a selling point on the book's Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Piano-President-Patrick-Wensink/dp/1621050203/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3 http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Piano-President-Patrick-Wensink...