This article includes a deep analysis of a offensive and defensive position of the defendant at the lawsuit, and in what position takes the defendant in relation to the pretences that are advanced by the plaintiff in request for summons. So, this article contains a clear and exact study of the means used by the defendant to defend himself against the plaintiff's action, though the defendant has a passive role in the civil proceedings, however the civil procedural law takes into consideration the principles underlying it, reserved two means for the defendant, by which he defends himself against the claims of the active party (plaintiff) in the process, that is these are the reference and the counterclaim. These two means are totally different, so much in content and in the effects they produce, because one determines the defendant in the process to have an offensive position, the other a defensive position.