Verizon had to respond to the AT&T lawsuit at some point, but I didn’t think the response would be so catty. And boy is it catty. Verizon lawyers have dropped all the legalese in order to get a few more digs at AT&T and its crappy network.

The response opens like this: “AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon’s “There’s A Map For That” advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon’s ads are true and the truth hurts.” So it’s gonna be like that then? And that’s just what the lawyers are saying. Imagine how much worse things could get over the airwaves.

As Engadget points out, the rest of the response reads more like a press release than a legal document. Here’s another tidbit:

In the final analysis, AT&T seeks emergency relief because Verizon’s side-by-side, apples-to-apples comparison of its own 3G coverage with AT&T’s confirms what the marketplace has been saying for months: AT&T failed to invest adequately in the necessary infrastructure to expand its 3G coverage to support its growth in smartphone business, and the usefulness of its service to smartphone users has suffered accordingly.

Me-ow. This one’s definitely not over.

AT&T might have done well to keep quiet about Verizon’s “map for that” ads. Since bringing a lawsuit concerning the original commercial, Verizon has launched three more ads, all bearing the same message: AT&T’s network sucks. It’s not that the message is anything new, but AT&T has made it clear that network quality is a pressure point, and now Verizon’s going to squeeze.

The new ads will likely air all through the holidays since they’re all about Christmas. In one the iPhone ends up on the island of misfit toys, not fitting in until it shows its new friends the AT&T 3G coverage map. That one works on two levels, digging at AT&T and reminding Apple that Verizon still really wants the iPhone.

The second ad turns the naughty gift from coal into AT&T’s network, and the third features a man having a Blue Christmas (yes, the song runs in the background) until he walks home to find a festive red package sitting on his front porch.

The last two ads sound like the usual competition bashing you see in any industry, but that the commercials have so much truth behind them makes them devastatingly effective. Talk to anyone with an iPhone and you’ll hear about AT&T’s crap network. Apparently no one has mentioned to Big Blue that fixing their network would solve all kinds of problems, the least of which is this new ad campaign.