Asset Acceptance - I was hoodwinked, yippee!

I have been showing up to court (3 times) and I was told by Asset's representing lawyers that the suit was being passed to another date.

On 5/7/07 - I disputed the debt verbally (passed to 5/23. On 5/22/07, I received a letter from the law firm with a validation that looked to be an internally created document by AA. On 5/23/07, the lawyer again passed it until 6/18. On 6/5/07 I sent a debt validation letter certified/return receipt to both Asset & the Law Firm (both received 6/11/07. On 6/18/07, the lawyer advise me that he was passing until 7/23/07. I asked if that was it (as he had several other folks waiting to talk to him), he stated "yes, you can go, I'll take care of it" (which is the same response I rec'd 5/7/07 & 5/23/07. So, I left and headed back to work.

Note: The lawyer is a stand-in buddy of one of the lawyers from the firm. He is retired, can't hear well and can't walk well (sits in the courtroom, rather than walking out as the others do).

Yesterday I pulled my credit and to my surprise there was a judgment. Apparently, after I left the courtroom 6/18/07, a judgment was placed against me.

I called the courts and inquired on the judgment, at which time I was told I could not file an appeal because the 10 days had expired. I got in touch with the judge's office and when I told the admin what happened she said, "Umm.. that's malpractice". Anyway, I inquired about coming in to talk to the judge and she said come Friday 7/13/07, telling me not to get my hopes up as the courts hands are tied sometimes. She also made the comment that the lawyer sitting in shouldn't really be in the court room as he is too old, and then went on to tell me he sits in for this law firm as a favor to one of his buddies. She believed it to be a misunderstanding/miscommunication on the old lawyer's part, and stated this is one of the problems when stand-ins are in the courtroom. (You're kidding me, right?)

In the morning I plan on at least speaking with the judge to let him know I was there and what took place.

I know this isn't right as the whole thing has been shady from the beginning, hence the dispute. In addition, it is well out of the statute of limitations though AA claims a payment was made 5/21/07.

I don't know much about civil matters and I'm curious if I should get a lawyer and countersue AA and possibly the law firm for malpractice (not that I think I could win against the law firm). I hate the thoughts of paying a lawyer, but I feel like my rights were taken away from me, intentional or not, they're gone.

Can we say "bend over"? Because at some point I got reamed... hard.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.