Ok so as it stands now,
I refused to settle, I'll be damned if I'll pay for something I didn't do, I'm looking into getting a local lawyer who specializes in civil cases, I have a friend with a degree in criminal law, but not in civil, but he's looking into lawyers in the area for me, he spends a lot of time in court, so he's a little less frightened by it, and I prefer to have him pick a lawyer then me opening the phone book and picking at random. Frankly the longer this goes on the longer I think this law firm was just fishing for the settlement, after I refused to settle they said they'd be filing the lawsuit itself on the 20th, I have yet to hear back from them, and previously they were sending everything priority overnight mail, so they may have decided it wasn't worth fighting. I also contacted the state bar, the BBB, the newspapers, and the EFF
http://www.eff.org/. and my roommate is blogging on his tech web boards, and they have been a lot of help, their talking about building a web site to advertise the case, and accept donations for legal fee's, thats is if it goes that far. But as of today we haven't been contacted by the law firm, I'm really beginning to think it was just a attempt to legally scam money out of me.
Sunny has got it right, I think. This does not sound legitimate to me, from what you've said so far. The American Bar Association should have a national registry for Law firms ... and most law firms have web sites these days. Have you at least confirmed the existence of the firm?
And yeah I've confirmed this law firm exists, so that sucks.
Lawsuits also have to be listed in the jurisdiction where they are filed ... I would think that a legitimate suit would have a docket number and that this would be given in the letter if you were really being sued. Also, if you were really being sued I think you would receive a notice from the courts.
With these Internet piracy cases its not quite so clear cut, they file against the ISP for the identity of the owner of the IP address, then they file against the people, so what I got was a letter from my ISP saying they got a subpoena for my ID from a law firm, I then contacted the law firm and explained they had the wrong guy, they then got my name, address, phone # etc, and have not sued us yet, they said they were going to do that on the 20th, but I haven't heard back from them since the 17th when I stated I was not settling.
http://www.subpoenadefense.org/
It was probably a really shitty movie too!
I don't know I've never seen it, (lords of War) but I'm guessing it was.
Well, there are a couple of lawyers on this board...Ellienor and Voronwe. Voronwe is here more often than Ellienor, and his whole practice revolves around protecting people's rights, so you could PM him, direct him to this thread.
Well I really don't want to impose on anyone, I really posted mostly because I wanted to vent, and you have been very helpful, and supportive for which I thank you. Hopefully this whole mess will just go away, wishful thinking I know, but I can wish.