Stop 5 of 8 · Weekly
The demand letter
Facts in, a letter in your own register out, with every statute pulled in Westlaw before it goes on your letterhead.
The letter that has to be right the first time
An unpaid invoice, a landlord who has not made a repair in five months, an employee handbook promise that was not kept. Elena writes eight or nine demand letters a month and they are the highest ratio of consequence to length in her practice. One page, sent to a person who will forward it to their own lawyer, and every date and section in it will be read against the file.
The drafting is not the hard part. The hard part is that it goes out on her letterhead, in her name, with her tone, and that any authority in it is being asserted to an opponent.
Give it your own letters
Elena keeps three of her past demand letters, names redacted, in the same Project as her clause library. They do the work that no adjective can. Her openings are one sentence. She never uses the word egregious. She states the demand as a numbered list, gives fourteen days, and names the next step in a single clause without threatening anything she is not prepared to do. Claude can see all of that in three letters. It cannot infer it from the word firm.
The facts sheet
Before drafting, Elena writes the facts as bullets: what was agreed and where it says so, what happened, what it cost, what she wants, by when. Initials, not names. That sheet is the input, and it is also what the client version is built from later, so the two never drift.
Try this
Attached are three of my own demand letters as examples of register and structure, and my facts sheet for this matter. Draft the letter. Match the length, the sentence rhythm and the way I open and close in the examples. Cite only the contract sections and the dates from my facts sheet. Numbered demand, a response date fourteen days out, and one closing clause naming the next step. If you believe a statute applies, do not put it in the body, put it at the end under Authorities to verify with the exact proposition it is for. [paste the facts sheet]
You are the lawyer who receives this letter. Give me the three weakest points in it: the assertion you would ask me to support, the date or number you would check first, and anything I have claimed that my own facts sheet does not actually establish. Do not rewrite the letter.
Using only the facts sheet and the letter, write the note to my client. Four short paragraphs: what I sent, what I asked for, what usually happens next and on what timescale, and what I need from them if there is no answer by the response date. Plain English, no legal terms, no prediction of outcome, and mark it as a draft for my review.