Legal Letters

An initial legal letter is a powerful document. If it’s carefully worded and legally accurate, it can:

·      Bring about a settlement without the need for a lengthy and costly court case.

·      Start your claim off on a strong footing – one that’ll help you at every stage, especially if the case does go to court.

But the flip side is that a badly written or factually flawed letter can often:

·      Run afoul of the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) that lay out specific requirements that some legal letters have to meet

·      Create a counterproductive sense of hostility from the very start of proceedings

·      Make a long, expensive court case inevitable when your claim could’ve been resolved without one

·      Conflict with information you later give in court – giving your opponent an easy way to discredit your case

·      Be construed as blackmail or duress (for example: ‘pay me X within a week, or I’ll go to the press’)

For these reasons, it’s vital to get a legal professional to write these letters for you. 

Legal letters can cover countless different scenarios

Some of the most common claims are:

·      Personal injury

·      Breach of contract

·      Neighbour disputes (like noise or encroaching on boundaries)

·      Defamation

·      Inheritance disputes

·      Consumer rights

·      Professional negligence (including medical negligence)

·      Property ownership and tenancy issues

·      Discrimination

Getting a direct access barrister to write your letter is a very cost-effective option in the long term

If you can settle your case without the need for a court case, you’ll save yourself a lot of time, money and stress. And if it does go to court, a flawed letter can doom your case – and often leave you with a big bill for covering your opponent’s legal fees. 

A lot of people assume that having a legal professional write their letter means they’ll have to retain that professional for the entire claim. That’s simply not the case – you have the option to, but you’re certainly not under any obligation.