The Cost-Effective Way to Protect Your Rights
Video Transcribed: What is a cease and desist letter? I’m James Wirth, a lawyer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and that is the question that we have is, what is a cease and desist letter? How does it factor into perhaps maybe what you may need to resolve a legal situation? All right.
So a cease and desist letter is typically a letter that is drafted by an attorney or a law office. You put it on letterhead because it is official, and you note that there is a violation of some civil code or some criminal code, and you’re telling the person that the letter goes to that, “You need to stop this activity,” that it is illegal, and then likely there’s a threat in here to let them know what the consequences maybe if they do not stop that activity. So to cease means to stop, and to desist means to stop. So you’re telling them to stop this activity, and if not, you’re letting them know what the legal consequences may be.
A lot of times with the law office… I mean, filing a lawsuit can be time-consuming and it can be costly. If we can get something resolved with a simple letter, a cease and desist letter, then that’s the way to go initially. Also, there’s another benefit to a cease and desist letter. You can show that you’ve approved that, send a certified mail, and get a copy of the signature back. If they don’t cease that, you do need to file a civil case against them, a civil suit. You’ve got the evidence that they knew that this was a violation, at least from the date of that letter, and yet they continued to do that despite the notice that you gave them, and you gave them an opportunity to cure, and they refused to do so, which can be used as perhaps approving your case or perhaps heightening damages for your case.
So cease and desist letter, is a letter sent by usually a law office requesting that some activity stop. It is not filed with a court. It is not litigation, but it is something to try to avoid litigation. So if you’re dealing with a circumstance where you may need to tell someone to stop violating your rights, you may want to turn to sending a cease and desist letter for you. But don’t just take this information from this video, talk to an attorney privately, confidentially, and get legal advice specific to your circumstances. If you’d like to speak to a Tulsa cease and desist attorney at my office, you can get that scheduled by going online to makelaweasy.com.
