What is a Demand Letter? <br /> <br />Welcome to the Legal Definitions Series, a set of short videos designed to explain the meanings of legal words, principles and laws very simply, and give law students or lay people a feel for the mechanisms and thinking behind them! <br /> <br />Letters of Demand are something any paralegal working in a litigation firm is probably going to become very familiar with. <br />These documents are formal warnings, inviting the other party to resolve the matter before the dispute becomes a court case. They are pretty straight forward, just outlining what needs to be done and by when. <br />The reason for this is actually because Letters of demand aren’t usually expected to really change anything; lawyers will write an ‘angry letter’ which has a specific contextual meaning, if they want to nudge a person towards doing something. That and others measures will often have already been attempted, and achieved nothing, before the solicitors actually fire off a letter of demand. By the time one of them does get sent, the parties probably already expect they will need to sue the person and these are just treated as a compulsory step before the lawsuit. <br /> <br />Disclaimer: Nothing in this video constitutes legal advice, they are intended to give watchers enough information to carry on a casual conversation about law without needing to stop and ask what different terms mean, NOT as a springboard for legal arguments. <br />If are reading this to help understand legal advice you have been given, always ask the lawyer themselves for clarification if you didn't know the meaning of a word of concept they have mentioned because they may be using a different meaning or plan to apply the concept in a way that I have not covered. <br />All of the concepts described are broad and I intentionally do not give enough information to determine whether any of the ideas discussed will be explicable in any scenario, hypothetical or literal.
