Among the more fascinating letters to editors are those from lawyers.

Surely an editor somewhere must have a wall of framed threats from lawyers, which cause either considerable mirth or lots of pain.

Take this one which the editor of The Sydney Morning Herald received in May 2010 from the law firm Colin Biggers & Paisley:

''This firm acts for Mr Moses Obeid. Mr Obeid instructs us that he has been contacted by a journalist employed by your newspaper - Ms Anne Davies. Ms Davies has put questions to Mr Obeid regarding the Obeid family farm in the Bylong Valley … The Obeid family farm is a working property producing beef cattle. It is also a holiday destination for members of the Obeid family …

''Based on the questions put to him by Ms Davies, Mr Obeid believe [sic] the Herald is considering running a story which purports to link ownership by the Obeid family of a farm in the Bylong Valley with the granting of certain resource exploration licences by the New South Wales government in the Bylong Valley region. There is no such relationship.''

The letter says the Obeid family has no involvement in decisions relating to the granting of exploration licences in the valley and concludes with the usual flourishes about malice and aggravated damages if anything along those lines is published.

Three days after the letter was written the Herald published a story by Davies linking an Obeid company with a prospective coalmining company which was seeking to raise funds for exploration in the Bylong Valley.

The headline was ''Coal down below: how rich is his valley''.

Eddie Obeid also stood up in Parliament the night before the article went to press, accusing the Herald of having a vendetta against him. All he sought to do was represent the interests of constituents who were concerned about a dangerous bridge in the area.

''I make no apologies, this is what my job has been for 18 years,'' Obeid told a sleepy Legislative Council.

Three weeks ago Geoffrey Watson, SC, made a detailed opening address to the Independent Commission Against Corruption in which he outlined what had been discovered by commission investigators so far about the Obeids' rural properties, coal in the Bylong Valley, acquisitions by associates of the Obeids, and the involvement of Ian Macdonald, the then minister for primary industries and mineral resources.

This inquiry is known as Operation Jasper.

What is additionally intriguing is that about two years before the threatening letter from Colin Biggers & Paisley to the Herald, some partners in the firm had been busily engaged in creating companies and trusts on behalf of the Obeids so they might better hide their interest in the prospective mineral riches of the Bylong Valley.

In one exhibit before ICAC, partner Chris Rumore made a file note which showed the Obeids were up for a split of profits arising from the increased value of neighbouring rural land purchased by a family friend, Justin Lewis.

Another partner, Greg Skehan, was the sole shareholder in a trust company, Voope Pty Ltd, that held the Obeids' interest directly in a mining venture, as distinct from the grazing of moo-cows.

As counsel assisting ICAC, Watson, put it: ''This development was quite significant because the use of Voope had the effect of masking the involvement of the Obeids and that mask left them quite free to go and get involved in a mining venture.''

So it's a puzzle that two years after these manoeuvres took place, the firm was writing a letter to the editor that categorically denies any ''link'' between the Obeids and mineral exploration licences in the Bylong Valley.

The puzzle may be unravelled by Commissioner David Ipp in due course.

Only this month another rip-snorter of a lawyer's threatening letter came to light. This was from Robert Todd, a partner in the global law shop Ashurst, previously known as Blake Dawson (not to be confused with the US porn star of the same name).

In writing to electricity price campaigner Bruce Robertson, Todd was in attack mode on behalf of his client, Grid Australia, a consortium of state-owned power companies.

Robertson had been an investment analyst, but is now a cattle farmer on the mid-north coast of NSW.

Who knew cattle farming could get so exciting.

Robertson had in public statements on the ABC, to the Herald and to a Senate inquiry attributed the eye-watering increase in power prices to the industry's ''gold-plating'' of infrastructure, dodgy forecasts and other misleading claims, such as ''rigorous reliability settings''.

Todd wanted Robertson to stop making these claims, to remove his submission to a Senate inquiry from his website, apologise and pay costs - otherwise litigation might ensue.

Senator Matt Thistlethwaite (ALP, NSW) said that Todd's letter might amount to a contempt of Parliament, in that witnesses before a Senate committee were protected by the law.

The letter was devoid of much specificity, such as which individual had been defamed, and how come government authorities were feeling ''hurt and distressed'' when they have no rights in defamation law.

Robertson got in touch with the Environmental Defenders Office, currently under budgetary threat from the O'Farrell government, and very shortly the legal threat crashed and burned, with the chairman of Grid Australia making a grovelling apology.

These are just two instances of bullying by lawyers, who hide behind ''instructions'' in making outlandish threats to people who seek to throw light on murky behaviour by corporates and politicians. Unfortunately, it is something editors experience on almost a daily basis.

The Letters Of Lawyers Versus The Letter Of The Law