From what I understand, that case wasn't necessarily baseless, but they drew media attention to it by publishing the letters. Arkell withdrew his claims following _that_.

For most people, if you pull them into the spot light, you will quickly shut them up. That does not make their legal threats baseless.

A non-baseless threat so referred would land you in deep trouble, however.

I think the core issue here is not being able to distinguish the two cases easily.

Absolutely, and I'm sure this is very industrially & culturally-specific experience. I don't blame OP for not being able to distinguish. (though I wouldn't have even read the whole email before hitting delete)

Personally I've told some expensive solicitors to get lost successfully, and for some I've engaged my own & spent tens of thousands. I suppose I tended to be aware of legal risks that I was running in my old business.

But lawyers are trying to get a result for their client as fast as possible. So if they've sent you something full of hand-waving jargon, they're either not very good at communicating (& not the kind of lawyer used to taking things further) or they're trying to intimidate because they've not got anything substantial to say.

Also (in my xp) it's rare that a lawyer won't clarify something they've written unless they're being paid to intimidate, and (in the UK at least) a judge will have short shrift with a plaintiff if pre-trial communications were insubstantial and intimidatory. You can't just be summoned to court with no idea what you did wrong.

I did exactly that in my open reply to the same letter! https://blog.freeradical.zone/post/ccpa-scam-2021-12/