What is a Letter of Demand? Legal Definition Series

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!

Letters of Demand are something any paralegal working in a litigation firm is probably going to become very familiar with.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.