Individuals and companies that receive a cease and desist letter face the very real potential for legal liability if the letter is not handled appropriately and effectively. For business owners and stakeholders, there is no substitute for sound legal guidance when determining how serious the risks are to the company. For every valid claim made in a cease and desist letter, dozens of others are empty threats that will cause nothing more than an inconvenience. However, treating a strong allegation of wrongdoing improperly can lead to severe repercussions.

Dr. Nick Oberheiden and the senior attorneys at the national corporate defense law firm Oberheiden P.C. have guided numerous companies through the delicate process of responding to a cease and desist letter. Here are six tips for beating one that you have received.

1. Determine the General Nature of the Allegations

When you first receive a cease and desist order, the thing you need to do right away is determine the general nature of the allegations that are being made against you or your firm. Cease and desist letters generally target ongoing courses of conduct that the sender claims is violating their rights, intellectual property rights, or the law. This can take a wide variety of forms.

For example, companies and individuals can receive cease and desist letters that allege:

• Trademark infringements
• Improper use of trade secrets
• Breach of contract
• Unfair business practices, debt collection practices, or trading practices
• Infringing a patent or copyright

Each of these allegations involve widely divergent legal issues. Pinpointing the nature of the demands being made in the cease and desist letter is the first step in beating it.

2. Find and Hire an Experienced Lawyer in the Practice Area at Issue

Once you have at least a general idea of nature of the allegations being levied against you or your company, the next step is to hire an experienced lawyer that practices in the legal field at issue. This is essential for raising an effective defense against the demands in the cease and desist letter: An intellectual property lawyer is going to be a good asset to have when the demands relate to things like a patent or a copyright, but not when the cease and desist letter targets, for example, an ongoing nuisance from your property that neighbors want to stop.

The fact is that not all lawyers are the same. Additionally, just because cease and desist letters are merely the first round of the dispute resolution process, it does not mean that this juncture can be taken lightly. Getting a lawyer with relevant experience on your side at this early stage in the legal proceedings can mean the difference between positioning your company well in its defense, on the one hand, and making critical mistakes that create headaches and needless risks for liability down the road, on the other.

3. Ascertain the Strength of the Allegations in the Letter

With the help of an attorney with relevant experience, the next step is perhaps the most critical: Determining whether the cease and desist letter has merit or any legal grounds to support it.

Lots of cease and desist letters are used as exercises in bullying behavior. Companies and individuals use a cease and desist letter to pressure others into doing what they want. Such a letter may blow your allegedly wrongful conduct out of proportion and overstate the law in ways that make it nearly unrecognizable to most legal processionals.

However, other cease and desist letters make reasonable demands that you stop a course of conduct that, when you review the circumstances, do in fact violate the sender’s legal or contractual rights.

The vast majority of cease and desist letters fall somewhere between these two extremes. Determining the level of risk that a letter presents to your company is a fundamental part of settling on an effective and appropriate defense strategy.

4. Decide What Your Interests Are

Nearly as important as gauging the risks that the letter presents to you or to your company is settling your own interests in the situation.

Dr. Nick Oberheiden, the founding partner of the national civil litigation defense law firm Oberheiden P.C., often has to remind people of this fact. “No matter how valid or empty the demands are in the cease and desist letter, your own interests should color your defense strategy. If you need to stomp out the allegations to protect your future, then adopting a defense strategy that focuses on damage control will not be ideal. On the other hand, if you need the allegations to go away quickly and quietly in order to protect your company’s reputation, then drawing a line in the sand and refusing to open a dialogue with the other party will be unwise.”

5. Respond to the Letter – Do Not Ignore It

The worst thing that you can do to a cease and desist letter is to ignore it. Not responding to it is almost guaranteed to escalate the situation, all while depriving you of valuable time that could have been used to diffuse it.

Cease and desist letters – particularly those written by lawyers – will threaten to pursue legal action if you do not stop your course of conduct within a certain period of time. If you ignore the letter, that period of time will expire.

Many recipients are confident that the sender is bluffing. However, many of the lawyers who send a cease and desist letter often take pains to make sure that their client is willing to follow through on their promises of legal action. After all, if enough of their clients prove unwilling to act on their promises of legal action, it diminishes the firm’s potency and reputation. Lawyers live off of their reputation. If it becomes common knowledge that lots of a firm’s cease and desist letters are not acted upon, then more and more recipients will ignore the threats they make, undermining the credibility of the law firm that is sending a cease and desist letter out.

Attorneys strive to avoid that situation by making sure that their clients are not making promises of legal action that they do not mean to keep.

The hope that the sender will just drop his or her claims in the face of your stoic silence is rarely rewarded.

6. Keep Your Eye on the Bottom Line and Be Open to Negotiation

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that “beating” a cease and desist letter can take a lot of forms. Rejecting the demands outright and refusing to negotiate the legal claim is a strong defensive position to take when the allegations are flimsy. But when they have some substance and legal power to them, such an aggressive posture regarding the cease and desist letter may escalate the situation, ruin the potential for negotiation, and lead to a very public display of legal liability and legal consequences.

When the cease and desist letter threatens severe legal action for some strong allegations, negotiating and settling the case quickly and quietly can still amount to a big win for you or your company, if it would protect your interests in the long run.