They will not stop contacting you. Put the demand in writing.

NY PENAL LAW (HARASSMENT, STALKING) · FAMILY COURT ACT ART. 8 · COMMON-LAW TORTS

First, the line you need to know about.

Before anything else: if the person has threatened to hurt you, has shown up at your home or workplace uninvited more than once, is following you, or is a current or former intimate partner or family member whose behavior is escalating, do not start with a letter. Call the police. Ask about an order of protection. A lawyer's letter is a piece of paper that asks someone to stop. An order of protection is a court order that the police enforce on the spot and that carries arrest for violation.

In New York, orders of protection come from two places. Criminal Court issues them as part of a criminal case after a police complaint. Family Court issues them in what is called a family offense proceeding, which is available when the other person is a relative, a spouse or former spouse, someone you have a child with, or someone you have been in an intimate relationship with. The Family Court route does not require a criminal charge and you can file it yourself. We refer clients there regularly, and we do not send letters in cases where the order is what they need.

Everything that follows is for the other cases: the ones where the person is unpleasant, persistent, and unwilling to take a hint, but where the real goal is to make them stop contacting you and to create a record if they do not.

What counts as harassment, in plain terms.

New York's Penal Law makes it a crime to engage in a course of conduct, or repeatedly commit acts, that alarm or seriously annoy another person and serve no legitimate purpose. Repeated phone calls, texts, or emails with no legitimate purpose of communication can be aggravated harassment. Following, monitoring, or repeatedly contacting someone in a way that causes them to fear for their safety can be stalking. These are criminal definitions, prosecuted by the District Attorney, and the police decide whether to pursue them.

On the civil side, there is no single New York tort called harassment. What exists is a set of claims that fit pieces of the conduct: intentional infliction of emotional distress for extreme and outrageous behavior; trespass for showing up on your property after being told not to; private nuisance for interference with the use of your home; defamation for false statements made to your employer or family; and in some cases tortious interference, if the contact is costing you business or a job. A letter can invoke these. Whether any of them would succeed at trial depends on the facts, and we say so in the letter rather than overstate it.

The situations we see most.

• The ex who cannot let go. Dozens of messages a day across every platform, new numbers when you block the old one, "just checking in" that is not checking in. Usually no threats. Usually no legitimate purpose.
• The former client or customer. A dispute ended, but the emails did not. Now they are copying your colleagues, posting on your professional pages, or calling your office repeatedly.
• Contacting your employer or family. The person has moved from you to the people around you: messages to your boss about your "character," calls to your parents, friend requests to your kids.
• The neighbor. A dispute over noise or parking that has become daily confrontation, filming, or notes on the door. This one has its own page: neighbor harassment cease and desist.
• The online campaign by someone you know. A former friend or business partner who posts about you, tags you, and creates new accounts when blocked. Where the posts include false statements of fact, the defamation analysis on someone spreading lies about me applies too.

What a cease and desist letter does here.

A no-contact letter from an attorney does four things that your own messages cannot.

It documents the pattern. The letter lays out the contact by date, channel, and content: forty-two text messages between March 3 and March 19, six calls to the office on March 20, an email to your supervisor on March 22. Seeing the behavior written out that way, by a third party, is often the first time the person has seen it as a pattern rather than a series of justified reactions.

It establishes notice. The letter states, unambiguously, that all contact is unwanted and must stop: no calls, texts, emails, social media messages, contact through third parties, or appearances at your home or work. After the letter is delivered, the person can never claim they did not know. That matters for every step that follows, because both criminal harassment and most civil claims turn on conduct that continues after a clear request to stop.

It states the consequences honestly. Our letters identify the criminal provisions the conduct may already violate, the civil claims available, and the fact that continued contact will be reported and used. We do not threaten things the law does not provide. A letter that overpromises gives the recipient, or their lawyer, an easy reason to dismiss it.

It often ends it. In our experience, most people who are harassing someone they know stop when a lawyer's letter arrives. Not because the letter can force them, but because it makes the cost of continuing concrete and personal. The sender goes from "I am just trying to talk to her" to "a law firm has a file on me."

What the letter cannot do.

We tell every client this before sending. The letter is not an order of protection. It cannot be enforced by the police. If the person ignores it, nothing happens automatically; you decide the next step. It cannot stop someone who does not care about consequences, and it cannot protect you from someone who is dangerous. It also cannot make someone stop doing lawful things: a person is allowed to post about their own life, to speak to mutual friends, to exist in the same neighborhood. The letter addresses contact with you and communications about you that cross into defamation or interference, not the person's general existence.

If you are unsure which side of the line you are on, the honest answer is that a letter and an order of protection are not mutually exclusive. People often send the letter first because it is fast and the conduct is not yet dangerous, and then file in Family Court or with the police if it continues, with the letter as Exhibit A.

Preserve the evidence now.

Everything depends on the record. Before you block, before you delete, before you respond:

• Screenshot every message with the date, time, and sender visible. Export full conversation threads where the platform allows it.
• Keep call logs. Screenshot them, and download your carrier's records if you can.
• Save voicemails as audio files, not just on the phone.
• Ask family, friends, or coworkers who were contacted to forward you what they received and to keep their own copies.
• Write down in-person incidents the day they happen: date, time, place, what was said, who saw it.
• Keep a simple log. A dated list of every contact, in one document, is worth more than a phone full of screenshots you cannot find.

Do not reply, except once, in writing, to say that you do not want any further contact. That single message, with the date, is a useful piece of the record and the letter will reference it. After that, silence. Every reply you send is something the other person will characterize as a conversation.

The no-contact demand, specifically.

The heart of the letter is a demand drafted to leave no room for interpretation. It names every channel. It covers indirect contact, because "I did not text her, I had my sister do it" is a real thing people say. It addresses appearances at home, work, school, and places you regularly go. It states that the only acceptable communication, if any is necessary at all, is through counsel or in writing about a defined subject, such as the return of property or a shared child's schedule. And it demands preservation of the person's own messages and records, which matters later if there is a case.

Where the person has contacted your employer, the letter also addresses that directly: the statements made, why they are false or improper, and the claims that follow from making them. Where property is still being used as a pretext for contact, we pair the letter with a demand to return it; see an ex won't return my belongings.

If it continues.

Three paths. First, the criminal path: take the letter, the log, and the post-letter contact to the police precinct and ask to file a complaint; the letter makes the "course of conduct" and "no legitimate purpose" elements much easier for an officer to see. Second, Family Court, if the relationship qualifies, for an order of protection. Third, a civil action, which for most harassment cases means Supreme Court because small claims cannot order anyone to stop doing anything and can only award money. Our page on demand letter vs. small claims explains that distinction. The cease and desist hub covers how all of this fits together, and our flat-fee demand letters page explains how the letter is prepared and sent.