Legal documents aren’t known for their wit or humor. Most legal writing, in fact, tends to be rather dry. But occasionally an attorney breaks the mold with such panache, the document begs to be shared.

Such is the case with a letter [PDF] penned by Vermont attorney Andrew Delaney in response to a threat of legal action for alleged copyright infringement. Delaney, a partner at Martin & Associates in Barre, Vermont, represents Greg Thatcher, founder of a website that publishes bank routing numbers as a public service.

With sarcastic comments and amusing footnotes that even include a reference to the Spice Girls, Delaney spells out his legal argument for why no infringement has occurred. The letter needs to be read in its entirety—footnotes included—for its full effect. But the closing paragraph certainly demonstrates the overall tone:

“If you do feel it’s necessary to sue our client, we are open Monday through Friday from 8:00 A.M to 6:00 P.M. and we have lollipops for people who serve process. So if you do file a complaint and send someone over with a summons, please have them wear something with a bit of purple . . . we all like purple.”

Delaney wrote the letter to Covington & Burling attorney Nigel Howard, who represents the American Bankers Association—the organization that alleged copyright infringement and sent Thatcher a takedown notice. Although Thatcher was convinced he did nothing wrong because he obtained his data from the Federal Reserve, he removed the information from his site, noting on the page that it was “unavailable due to legal action.” (The ABA’s takedown notice was first reported in June by Techdirt.)

Delaney told CorpCounsel.com he has been a long-time user of Thatcher’s website, so he was surprised and concerned when he visited the site one day and discovered he couldn’t get the information he sought because of a legal threat. He contacted Thatcher and told him he’d represent him pro bono—a fact he did not neglect to point out in his letter to Howard in one of his many humorous footnotes:

“We’re not charging Greg because we used to use his site a lot. And we never paid him anything. But then you wrecked it for everyone. That wasn’t nice.”