Search for a cease and desist letter and page one of Google hands you two things: free templates with no signature behind them, and law firms that won't name a price until you've booked a consultation. This is the third option, a letter drafted and signed by a New York attorney, screened honestly before you pay, at a price printed right here: $499 flat.
A defamation cease and desist letter is a formal demand, here, drafted and signed by a New York attorney, that a person stop making false statements of fact about you, delete or retract what they have published, and preserve the evidence. It is not a court order; it creates notice, a paper trail, and consequences for continuing.
In New York, false statements accusing someone of a crime, of professional misconduct, of having a loathsome disease, or of sexual misconduct are defamatory per se: the law presumes damages, so you do not have to prove you lost money to have a claim. The letter puts that law in front of the speaker, in writing, with a deadline.
The intake asks for each statement verbatim, the date, and where it appeared (URL, platform, or who heard it). Screenshots upload in the same form.
$499, shown before you pay. Eligibility is checked free before checkout; if the statements look like opinion or protected speech, you'll know before you spend anything.
Daniel Hochman, Esq. makes the fact-versus-opinion call on every statement, applies New York's anti-SLAPP screen, drafts the demands and the retraction, and signs on firm letterhead. Choose draft review and it's emailed to you first.
The signed letter goes out with tracking, and by email where an address is known. You get the PDF, the tracking number, and a response-window countdown in the client portal.
The most straightforward outcome: the post comes down, the retraction is published or sent, and the matter closes. We confirm the deletion, and your copy of the letter and their compliance become your record if it ever resurfaces.
A response is usually good news: they engaged. Attorney review of their reply and a next-step memo are included free. If they push back with a legal argument, you'll know within a day whether it holds water and what the measured next move is.
Then the letter has done its second job. You now hold proof they were told, in writing, that the statements were false, and persisted. That is Exhibit A in any defamation action, and it changes how a court views damages and intent. A written case assessment ($499) tells you honestly whether filing is worth it.
Through this service, a defamation cease and desist letter costs $499 flat, drafting, attorney review and signature, mailing, email delivery, and a PDF copy included. Law firms billing hourly commonly charge several hundred dollars or more for a comparable letter; free templates cost nothing but carry no signature of counsel. Every follow-on step has a flat fee you see before you decide, nothing is charged automatically.
Statements made out loud: to your employer, your clients, a landlord, a co-op board, a room full of people. Harder to prove, so the intake asks who heard it and when. The letter demands cessation and a written retraction to the same audience. More on slander letters →
Anything fixed in a medium: a letter, an email, a flyer, a text to a third party. Libel is the easier case because the words are on paper, and the letter quotes them back verbatim with the per se category they fall into. More on libel letters →
A Google review, a Facebook post, a Reddit thread, an Instagram story, a message to your boss: all libel. The letter names each URL, demands deletion and retraction, and puts the poster on notice to preserve the account data. Genuine consumer opinions are protected and are screened out before anything drafts. More on online defamation →
Usually no, and we'll tell you straight: genuine consumer reviews sit in protected territory, and a C&D against one can trigger anti-SLAPP exposure. False factual accusations, 'they stole my deposit,' are different, and attorney review draws that line before anything drafts.
A signed attorney letter with a preservation notice changes the calculation for most speakers, and the ones who persist have handed you Exhibit A: proof they were told, in writing, that the statements were false, and continued anyway. No outcome is guaranteed; attorney review of their response, or their silence, is included free.
Through this service, $499 flat, drafting, attorney review and signature, mailing, email delivery, and a PDF copy included. Attorneys billing hourly commonly charge several hundred dollars or more for a comparable letter; free templates cost nothing but carry no signature of counsel. Every follow-on step has a flat price you see before you decide, nothing is charged automatically. Full price list.
No. It is not a court order, and by itself it can't force anyone to do anything. What it does is create notice, a dated evidence record, and litigation posture: once it's received, continuing to publish the statements is a choice made with full knowledge, which matters for damages and for how a court views the speaker's intent.
It can, if the letter targets protected speech. That is why the attorney reviews every matter before anything mails: genuine consumer reviews, pure opinion, and commentary on matters of public concern are declined under New York's anti-SLAPP law, with an honest explanation and your fee credited toward any other service. When the statements are provably false facts, a measured attorney letter is the low-escalation move: it demands a stop in writing before anyone files anything.
None of those are required. A cease and desist letter is a private demand, not a court paper, so there is no notarization and no formal service. We send it by mail with tracking so delivery is documented, and by email as well where a working address is known, the email usually lands first, and the certified receipt proves it arrived.
You can write your own, and for a minor dispute a polite letter sometimes works. The difference with a signed attorney letter is who the reader thinks is on the other end: a template from you reads as a complaint; a letter from counsel reads as the first page of a lawsuit, and it arrives with the statute already cited, the retraction already drafted, and the evidence-preservation demand already made. What every line of a cease and desist letter does.
No. A cease and desist letter is private correspondence between the parties. It is not filed with any court, it does not appear on a background check, and it creates no public record. If you're the one who received a letter, read what a demand letter can and cannot do before you respond.
All three. Slander is spoken, libel is written or published, and a social-media post, a Google review, or a text to your employer is libel. The letter is drafted for the medium: for online statements it names each URL and demands deletion and retraction; for spoken statements it demands cessation and a written retraction to the same audience. The intake asks where and how each statement was made.