You should educate yourself and seek counsel if you believe you need it. Because ultimately the situation is no different than getting a physician's opinion or a consultant's opinion or whatever else - you seek that expertise because you feel you need it. And usually that means you have to pay for it. But a lawyer's opinion, even if it's a good opinion, doesn't inoculate you from being sued or threatened or whatever else an antagonizing party may do.
But don't freak out. Everyone is terrified when they get their first lawyer letter. Everyone is outraged when they get their second. And when they get their third (or fourth or however long it takes to learn), they use it for toilet paper.
Actually, "reliance on advice of counsel" is a valid legal defense. It's an interesting legal privilege lawyers have given themselves.
Reliance on advice of counsel is not a blanket defense against any arbitrary crime you could be charged with or civil liability you might face. It is only a defense in a certain limited set of circumstances; and it also requires you to waive attorney-client privilege.
See https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti... for a good, if dated, overview of the law.
Once you do some searching you'll get a better idea of whether you need legal counsel. And just because you receive a letter doesn't mean you need to respond no matter what absurd timeline the demanding letter might have suggested.
Eventually they'll have to put up (and file a lawsuit) or shut up.
I know this, not only as an attorney today, but as someone who (before I got my law degree) did not do this and paid a very high price for my immaturity. Hiring an attorney could have saved me many thousands of dollars.
How bad is that lower quarter? Can you quantify that in any way?
