Though the small claims paperwork may require that a demand letter be served prior to filing the lawsuit, that is not what I had in mind. I said that the judge, prior to the actual trial, will require both parties go out into the hall and try to settle it.
If a small claims lawsuit is pending, as the OP is concerned with, the right advice IMO would be to at least communicate with the (would be) plaintiff. I simply said that "ignoring them or hiring a lawyer" is very poor advice.I am aware of it. But again, there is no responsibility for the defendant to respond before being served the complaint. He can ignore the former employer's out of court demands if he wishes and it won't hurt him. Of course after he is served the complaint he must respond and should the judge order a settlement conference, which is common, he'd need to at least participate in the conference. He need not agree to anything in that conference, however.
Cutting a loss in half is not "losing."Yes, actually. Because the other side would not settle for what was offered, and I believed that while we would lose, the judgment would be less than what government was demanding. And, I was correct. So while we "lost" in the sense that the court found for the government, I saved my client a whole lot of money by getting a decision for much less than what the government wanted.

