"The good news is that the
defendant can not bring an attorney to represent it at the hearing."

Unless the defendant happens to be an attorney. Hey, it happened to me and I got screwed. I was suing the state of CA and a particular individual for a contract violation, and lo and behold, the individual turned out to be a non practicing, but fully accredited attorney. (I was no match for him)

Not likely to happen in most cases tho..