> So what happens if you just ignore the other side's lawyers?
IAN[even_close_to_being]AL but I'm fairly sure this would result in a default judgment. At least it does in civil cases between citizens (in the US) and corporations- when a company files with the court clerk, a complaint ("you've been served" kind of thing) is issued to the defendant and they typically have 21 days to respond by filing their own motion with the clerk. If they ignore this or never actually receive this, a hearing is scheduled where a court date is decided, which the court will attempt to communicate to the defendant if they didn't show up to the hearing. The court date will come and go, and if the defendant is still ignoring the situation, the judge assumes there's no contest and will issue a default judgment against the defendant. In the case of corporations vs citizens, this is when damages/fines are accessed and wage garnishment notices get issued. Garnishments (and the corporate equivalent of fines) are no joke- corporate accountants take them extremely seriously because of the penalties for failing to carry them out: if they don't, the company's assets can get seized, accounts can get raided (depending on the type of case [medical and taxes are two large categories] and the plaintiff), and fines get levied and even increase. I imagine it's the same way with default judgments against corporations, but again, I'm no lawyer- just a guy musing about corporate civil suits based on citizen civil suits.