Landlord sues tenant

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Good day, I was hoping someone might shed some light into my situation.

State: NJ.

I had a lease for 1 year, but I decided to tell the landlord I needed to move for personal problems/issues. I was 5 months into my lease - 7 months to go. Landlord demanded 3 months rent plus keeping the security deposit, so basically 4 months rent. We though this to be outrageous, so we got legal advice from a lawyer. Lawyer did some digging and found out the landlord: 1) failed to disclose where our security deposit was  (in which bank, etc), 2) the basement was being used as a bedroom and the landlord did not have permission to use it as a bedroom and 3) The fire inspection by the fire department was due for months even before we moved in. So the lawyer told us to give a 30 notice to the landlord and if the landlord requested more money/complained, then the lawyer would send the landlord a legal letter stating to take the last month's rent from the security deposit, and told us not to pay the initial demanded sum. That was 4 months ago, we have since moved...

Now we got a lawsuit from the landlord requesting 7 months of rent. Any lawyers/knowledgeable people here could give me some advice?

Thank you.