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Notes -
There are no legal tricks to protect your assets, unless you put everything in a trust that you have absolutely no control over several years ahead of the conduct that led to the lawsuit. And there better not be any evidence that you actually control the money. Aside from that, there is no reason to default on a lawsuit. Even in credit card collection cases where you'd think there would be zero case I tell people to file the necessary paperwork and show up for the court date to avoid a default. Why? Because there's a 50/50 chance the creditor's attorney doesn't show up. When I was doing bankruptcy a few years ago I'd get calls from people who were getting sued but had no other debts, and I'd represent them for fun. One credit card company was using a small law firm in Harrisburg to essentially collect default judgments. I knew they weren't going to pay for someone to come to Pittsburgh for a $4,000 debt. Even if the firm is local, the attorney is often unprepared. I've gotten out of a few cases because the Plaintiff couldn't produce the original signed credit agreement. This can be a serious problem when the plaintiff is a collection agency that doesn't actually have the original agreement and would have to jump through a lot of hoops to get it. And then there's the fact that a bank representative needs to appear as a witness, again a serious problem if the plaintiff is a collection agency who can't testify to any relevant facts about the agreement or about the bank's recordkeeping procedures. And then there was the case where the lady from the credit union had everything and showed up without a lawyer, not realizing that companies can't appear pro se. The point is that even in hopeless cases, there are defenses that can be made and can be successful.
In this case, he filed an answer shortly after the default judgment was entered, and courts will usually give you a little leeway.
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