While Marty Singer, supposedly, doesn't say "Hold off on this and I'll give you another story" to the tabloids, the man behind the always-amusing celebrity cease-and-desist letters from Hollywood muscle firm Lavely & Singer does claim to be on good terms with them. Then again, he has to be: "A lot of people come to me and our firm to deal with the media," he tells The Hollywood Reporter, Esq. as part of its series on power lawyers.

You have a potential article that's about to be published in four hours or 24 hours or somewhere in between, and you typically want to prevent an article from being published. At that point, you have to be persuasive because you can't simply say the article is false and "We'll sue you," because they don't really care. You have to be able to convince publications why they shouldn't publish the article notwithstanding the law in the U.S. that relates to defamation, which is a difficult. [...]

When it comes to defamation, I believe we have the reputation that we will sue. If people know that you're dealing with a lawyer that has perhaps more defamation suits in the last five years than anyone in the entire country, it makes a difference. I think it's also being effective and writing a good letter so that someone might be scared when they get that letter. But you still have to know the facts and develop a relationship with the people you are working with to be successful.

So, from Celebrity Litigation 101: Scare tactics work best. Except when they don't.