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How to Settle a Judgment Debt in 2026: Expert Insights

Written by Hannah Locklear
Last updated on May 21, 2026

Summary: Settling a judgment debt is often better than facing wage garnishment. According to policy expert Lester Bird, most debt collection cases result in default judgments, but those who engage can negotiate settlements of 30-50% off the original amount. Solo can help you respond to lawsuits properly, and SoloSettle makes negotiating with collectors easier and less stressful.


Facing a judgment debt can feel overwhelming, but it doesn't have to lead to financial disaster. In a recent interview, George from Solo spoke with Lester Bird, a policy expert from The Pew Charitable Trusts who specializes in debt collection research.

Lester shared valuable insights about debt lawsuits and settlement options that could help you avoid the worst consequences of judgment debts.

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Why settlement is often your best option

According to Lester, approximately 60-70% of debt collection lawsuits result in default judgments because consumers don't respond. However, those who engage in the process often have better outcomes. Lester explained:

"When people can engage in these cases, when they can come up with settlements, that's oftentimes a better outcome for people when they owe the debt. Settlements are generally going to be your best option."

The alternative—wage garnishment—can create cascading financial problems:

  • Up to 25% of your paycheck could be taken
  • Your bank account could be wiped to $0
  • Personal property might be seized

According to Lester:

"Generally, settlements will be better for most people than getting a garnishment. A garnishment you don't know when it's going to hit. One day you're going to be waiting for that paycheck and 25% of it can be gone."

What you should know about debt collection lawsuits

Lester's research reveals several important facts about debt lawsuits:

  • The median debt amount in collection lawsuits is around $2,000
  • About 75% of cases involve debts of $4,000 or less
  • The same top 10-20 companies file the most lawsuits across all states
  • Debt buyers often purchase debts for pennies on the dollar, then sue for the full amount

Filing fees, attorney fees, and other court costs can almost double the original debt amount in some cases. That's why responding quickly and seeking settlement is crucial.

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Credit card payment estimated at 24.99% APR over 60 months. Settlement estimate based on industry averages. Actual results vary.

How to calculate affordable payment plans

Lester developed a debt settlement payment calculator that helps consumers find that "sweet spot" between paying off debt quickly and maintaining financial stability.

For example, a $1,600 judgment with 8% interest would take:

  • 86 weeks to pay off at $20/week (with $108 in interest)
  • Only 37 weeks to pay off at $45/week (with just $46 in interest)

This tool helps consumers make informed decisions when negotiating payment plans with collectors.

Let's consider an example.

Example: Holly was sued by a hospital for a $2,300 medical debt. Instead of ignoring the lawsuit, she filed an Answer with Solo and then used SoloSettle to negotiate with the collector. By explaining her financial situation and offering a lump sum payment of $1,380 (60% of the original debt), she was able to resolve the debt completely and avoid a judgment on her record.

Which debts settle for less?

Debt buyers like LVNV Funding often accept much larger reductions than original creditors. Why? They purchase debts for approximately 4-6 cents on the dollar, giving them more room to negotiate while still making a profit.

Medical debts make up a significant portion of collection lawsuits—about one-third in some states like Utah. These debts, along with purchased debts, often have the most flexibility for settlement.

Respond to debt collection lawsuits fast with Solo.

What about bankruptcy vs. settlement?

While bankruptcy is an option for some, the typical debt collection lawsuit involves amounts that might not justify bankruptcy on their own. For most consumers with judgment debts under $5,000, settlement offers a faster, less damaging path forward. As noted by Lester:

"The typical amount, so the median amount we see around the country is about $2,000, so half of all debt cases being filed in our court system are for $2,000 or less.”

Most debt settlement companies can only help with debts of $10,000 or more. SoloSettle, on the other hand, can help you control the negotiation settlement process and settle smaller amounts of debt.

Settle your debt for less with SoloSettle.

Transcript

George (00:35):

Alrighty folks. Looks like we are live here with my friend Lester. I am George. I'm one of the founders of solo suits. We're going to be talking about debt lawsuits and a lot of things related to them today. A lot of you guys are probably being sued for debt right now. That's one of the reasons why you've come to solo suit. So we're going to be talking about how to settle a judgment debt and Lester is a policy expert on debt and debt lawsuits. Can you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself?

Lester (01:05):

Yeah, sure. So I'm Lester Bird. In my day job, I work for the Pew Charitable Trust, where I work on a team focused on our nation's court system and the impacts it's having on communities around the country. The last few years I've led our work looking at debt collection lawsuits in particular, trying to understand what's going on in these cases, who's getting sued, what sort of amounts people are getting sued for, and then what's happening to people as they navigate the sort of complexities of the civil court system, typically without a lawyer.

George (01:36):

Awesome, fantastic as well. That's right in line with what we do.

Lester (01:40):

Yeah,

George (01:40):

Great. So Pew folks. Pew is the research guys. They do a lot of the surveys. They publish a lot of awesome data on all kinds of topics. Lester, how long have you been with Pew?

Lester (01:54):

I've been at Pew now for eight and a half years, and then working on the courts work for the last six.

George (01:59):

Nice. And I suppose, are you kind of working in the data or are you doing more of the policy recommendation side? I

Lester (02:08):

Get to do both, which is sort of fun. So I get to dig into the data, look at what's going on, and then work with policymakers on better solutions and then hopefully help them implement those solutions as well. So yeah, I get to cover the full spectrum of research to policy being put into action.

George (02:27):

Okay, fantastic. Well that is great. Imagine you know how to make some pretty awesome graphs.

Lester (02:36):

Pretty good at it. Nice.

George (02:38):

Well great. Cool. So where to start, my understanding is that you have done quite a bit of research in this space, right? This, let's just start off with basic question here. What is your experience with seeing consumers and creditors reach settlement in this space?

Lester (02:59):

Yeah, I think that's probably a good place to start for people visiting the site. I think in debt collection lawsuits, what we see is most people are not engaging in these lawsuits around the country. So when someone's getting sued, most of the time a person's not even able to either navigate the process to get to court filing an answer and things like that. In places where it's required, and we generally see a pretty high default rate, somewhere around 60 to 70% of these cases resulting in automatic win for whoever brought this lawsuit. But when we see people who make it through the process, show up to court and are able to engage, the very first thing typically that we see for people is that they will be sort of herded into a settlement with the of plaintiff lawyer who has sued 'em typically before they see a judge, before they even get to talk about the merits of whether there's a defense to the debt that they might owe, they're going to be routed into a settlement hearing to navigate a negotiation with a creditors attorney on one side, themselves on the other, and the guys on the other side are pretty skilled at negotiating and trying to come to agreements.

So that's generally what we see. We do generally though also see when people can engage in these cases, when they can come up with settlements, that's oftentimes a better outcome for people when they owe the debt, when they don't have any legal defenses to the debt that they might owe. Settlements generally going to be your best option. Not always, but most of the time trying to avoid garnishment and that forcible seizure of your wages or your bank account or your personal property is probably the best outcome for most people. If you can't settle these debts, sort of getting to a place where 25% of your paychecks being taken, your bank account's getting wiped out to $0, that's going to lead to a lot more cascading financial consequences for a person beyond just this debt.

George (05:15):

Right. Okay. So you guys think of settlement as the ideal outcome oftentimes for consumers in this position.

Lester (05:23):

I don't know if it's always the ideal outcome, but I think it's often the most preferred outcome. Typically when a person's getting sued, it's the debt that they owe, it's a valid debt, it meets all the statutory requirements of the laws in their states, and in those cases the best outcome possible probably for most people would in that case be sort of to settle and negotiate and really to avoid that garnishment.

George (05:53):

How do you think settlement compares to bankruptcy?

Lester (05:57):

That's an interesting question. We see consumer debt cases making their way into bankruptcy court. We see judgements making their way into bankruptcy court. We just don't know what happened to get that debt into bankruptcy court. So we don't necessarily know enough about negotiate now, we'll avoid bankruptcy later, anything like that. We just don't have enough data to be able to prove that out. I'll say mostly that's that we see in court too. The typical amount, so the median amount we see around the country is about $2,000, so half of all debt cases being filed in our court system are for $2,000 or less. Three quarters of 'em are for about $4,000 or less from the states that we've looked at. So those sort of amounts on their own might not be enough to sort of make someone qualify or be eligible for bankruptcy. There's other financial situations, obviously they can be, but these judgment debts in and of themselves generally don't meet a level that would help someone navigate the bankruptcy court. So at least as far as we can tell and what we can see

George (07:05):

And how does settlement compare to the other alternative garnishment? Like losing the case?

Lester (07:12):

Yeah, I generally think settlements will be better for most people than getting a garnishment, right? A garnishment you don't know when it's going to hit, right? One day you're going to be waiting for that paycheck and 25% of it can be gone. You're going to be going to the bank, or sorry, going to the grocery store to buy groceries, pay rent, and your bank account's going to be wiped out to zero or you're going to have someone coming from the court knocking on your door and taking items out of your home that they think have value to 'em. Right. Generally that's sort of the most suboptimal outcome in these.

George (07:45):

Right. Okay. Well, fascinating. Tell us a little bit more about the research that you've been doing.

Lester (07:53):

So for us, what we sort of do is go into states around the country and get as much court data as we can. So when a court case is filed, this case management system sort of builds a case and all the information related to a person's case is linked within it. What we do is try to get the bulk data, so all of those cases and really go through 'em. We analyze the data itself. We sometimes will look at documents and things like that, so we'll look at thousands and thousands of case documents and PDFs and things like that to really understand trends and what's going on for us at least coming to this space. We did find some things to sort of surprise us. One, the typical debt being $2,000 or less. That's as an outsider to the court system coming into this work.

I wasn't expecting that amount to be sort of where the middle of the road was for debt collection. The other thing we see, it's the top 10, top 20 plaintiffs in every state. So the company's filing all of these lawsuits. They're nearly all the same companies most of the time they're either the largest credit card companies or they're debt buying companies who have purchased these debts from someone else for pennies on the dollar. They're suing an individual for the full amount state to state to state, regardless of financial regulations in those states, regardless of court regulations about these companies and how they have to operate. It's the same companies who managed to make it to the top 10 in every state. And it's really for us at least seeing a real rise in the debt buying industry in courts over the past 20, 30 years.

And just like the volume of debt buying cases that are being filed in courts, the other thing for people and going to court has a lot of hidden costs. It gets expensive quickly. So it's not just the debt now that you originally might've owed someone, but now we're going to introduce other charges, right? You're going to have a filing fee that a plaintiff has paid that they're going to try to get back from you. They'll be charges for service of process for a process server to come and serve someone in a case. There'll be attorney fees, there might be other costs that get assessed. And one of the things we've found in many states is this are very strange fees that we don't expect in the state of Oregon. For example, we did some research and we saw there was a thing called a prevailing party fee. So if you lost your case, you had to pay a fee of a hundred dollars or 200 something dollars to the LS side just for the privilege of having lost your case. That was unique to Oregon. We haven't seen that in other states yet, but when we look at how much a court balloons a debt, it gets expensive very quickly. And sometimes when you're seeing $1,500, $2,000 debts, you are getting a lot of costs added on top of that. That can almost double some of these debts in some cases for people.

George (10:51):

The fee for losing your case that doesn't sound fun are civil filing fees for defendants on your radar. That's one of the craziest things we've seen.

Lester (11:01):

Yeah, I think it's one of the interesting things. You've not just in many states got the filing fee that a plaintiff has paid, but the individual who's been sued also then has to pay a fee to the court to even answer your case to say, yeah, I want to come in and defend my case, or I want to come negotiate this. You'll oftentimes have to pay that fee. And I think that's certainly an area that deserves more attention and it is something that keeps people out of the courts and it is a barrier to getting people to participate in these cases. And one of the things that's interesting, at least to us is we work closely with people who file these lawsuits, whether that's creditors attorneys or the companies who are filing these lawsuits and they talk all the time about wanting people to engage, wanting people to show up to court, wanting to be able to negotiate with folks and having that sort of answer fee, especially that sort of charge to answer a lawsuit is a real impediment to getting people to navigate the court system.

George (11:59):

Big impediment. The biggest, I believe the states with the highest fees are California and Minnesota where they can charge 400 and $435 in California to respond to a lawsuit,

Lester (12:12):

And it's not much better in Minnesota. It's right about the same.

George (12:17):

Right. Okay. Well great. Thanks for sharing a bit more on the research. I understand you've also made a debt settlement payment calculator tool. I'm going to go ahead and pull that up here. Yeah. Can you go ahead and tell us a little bit more about, maybe just walk this through, we're looking at it on the screen on the webinar.

Lester (12:38):

Excellent. Yeah, so this is an idea that I had from sitting in cases and watching settlements is just trying to help people figure out what a good settlement might look like for a debt that somebody owes. And so what we do here is try to quickly do some math to figure out if you owe a debt, can we find a point within that repayment that helps balance out paying off a debt fast enough that you're going to be making big chunks into it and keeping ahead of the interest but not having to pay off so much that it could impact the rest of your pocketbook. And so the real idea here is trying to find that sweet spot for folks with the debt, but where that nice balancing point hits. For folks, obviously the best, without knowing anything about a personal financial situation, the best sort of advice for most people would be pay as much as you can and get these things paid off quickly. But typically we just don't know enough about a person's financial situation to sort of be able to help them really calculate within their finances what to do. So this is a tool that can just take a basic judgment and Georgie might even want to just type something in here. We can sort of walk through it

In the judgment amount box. If you throw in say, $1,600, that's a typical debt in the state of Michigan, and we throw say an 8% interest rate on there. At this point it's going to ask you how much would you like to pay every week? In your mind? See a $1,600 debt, 8% interest rate, what do you think would be a decent weekly payment to be making and say, let's own 20 bucks in there and just say, if we pay 20 bucks a week, what does it look like?

George (14:29):

Okay, calculate here.

Lester (14:31):

Yeah, hit that calculate button and then scroll down the page. You'll see it does some math in the background and says basically if you're paying 20 bucks a week, it's going to take you 86 weeks to pay this debt off and you're going to end up paying $108 in interest on that 1600 debt. So that's where your head might've been at. What this then says is, okay, if we were going to try to find the sweet spot for paying this debt back, we would propose you sort of pay $45 a week that's going to pay this thing off in 37 weeks and you're going to pay 46 bucks in interest while you pay this debt off. And so the idea here behind this calculator is really, this is something I created in my own free time. It's not connected to my work, but it was just from sitting in these settlements and trying to figure out is there a way to give people just a little bit of information, just sort of understand more about what they're signing up for, what they think they want to sign up for, and what might be an ideal sort of place to sign up.

George (15:35):

Is the interest rate in this case, is that supposed to be the interest rate on the original loan or is that representing a statutory interest rate? Do you think

Lester (15:44):

That would be the interest rate on the judgment itself? So that would be the sort of post-judgment interest, I guess, assigned or, yeah, so it's not necessarily the original loan. Sometimes the interest rate from the original loan will be that interest rate. Other times it won't. There'll be limits on what courts are able to assess once case has been filed.

George (16:05):

Right. Fantastic. Fascinating. Okay, folks, we reserve most of the time in this show for any questions that you have for us. You've all put quite a few questions into the chat. So let's see if we can't get into some of those questions here. And these questions might be for me, they might be for Lester. Feel free if you have any questions about his research or what he's seeing in the courts, feel free to put a question in there about that. We also have Hannah and Yale who are with solo suit. They'll be responding to some messages in the chat just through the chat. Then we'll try to respond to some of 'em here verbally on video. And as we get into this, I just want to give our standard disclaimer, let you know that I am not a lawyer, not your lawyer. Civil suit isn't the law firm. I'm providing legal advice. We're just doing a webinar. Lester's not a lawyer either, as far as I know. So we're not creating an attorney client relationship.

Lester (17:07):

No legal advice.

George (17:08):

Great. I've got a question from aca. I have an active lawsuit with JP Morgan Chase for 17,000 and another with LVNV on behalf of SoFi for 37,000. Chase is offering a 25% reduction if they settle and LVNV is offering a 50% reduction. What are your thoughts, Lester, you want to weigh on that one?

Lester (17:33):

I will weigh in maybe not on that specific of what the best option there is, but I will say debt buying companies. So LVNV is sort of one of the larger debt buying companies in the country. They generally, we see them being able to make much bigger settlements for people than other sorts of debts. And that's typically because they've purchased these debts for pennies on the dollar. So they might've spent, they might pay about 4%, 5%, 6%, depends on the debts that they're buying, but they're not buying a debt for the full amount, they're buying it for pennies and then suing you for the full amount. And so that gives them a large area where they can be profitable as you repay these debts. And so when you are looking at debt buying companies in particular, I think that's where you can negotiate the largest percentage discounts on these sort of debts

George (18:32):

And ACA weighing in for civil suit, right, we find that most people want to settle the debts that they owe. We also, we see that's the best outcome, the best way to resolve a debt. So we definitely encourage people to go forward with settlement resolution, work it out with the collector and try to get something resolved. I think from the collector's perspective, they're taking on this big asset. In this case you're working with Chase. Chase is the creditor. They've taken on this risk to give you a loan, they're expecting to be paid back. So you can definitely see how settlement can work out and advance the interests of both parties here, 25% settlement with Chase is quite good. So the average settlement in the industry on a lawsuit debt is about 85%. So 25% discount is below that. So that's good. And average settlement right now on solo settle, our debt settlement marketplace is about 70%.

So if you're getting a 25% reduction, that's a pretty good place and you could probably move forward with that. And then LVNV, if they're offering a 50% reduction, that's pretty huge, especially on a lawsuit. So pre lawsuit that's settled quite a bit lower. But once the debt is in a lawsuit, the collector isn't going to be as willing to settle for a smaller amount because they've incurred quite a bit of cost by filing the lawsuit. So they've had to pay a law firm to file the lawsuit and that costs quite a bit of money. So getting a 50% reduction with LDMD sounds like quite a winning outcome, but ultimately you should do what you determine best. Alright, we got a question from tm. I couldn't pay any bills for almost a year. 10 accounts are in collection now. One lawsuit was filed. I'm trying to avoid other lawsuits. Do you recommend debt consolidation firms?

Lester (20:40):

That's an area that I, unfortunately, I just dunno enough about to give you advice on debt consolidation firms and what goes on in that industry. But yeah, I dunno, George.

George (20:50):

Yeah, I'm happy to weigh in on that. Yeah, debt consolidation firms. So there's a variety of options that have a terminology that's used somewhat loosely. I would say if you're in this space, if you're in this place, you're getting sued, you have a bunch of debts, you have a few options. You have chapter seven bankruptcy. That's like your debt gets discharged, it gets totally deleted. You have chapter 13 bankruptcy. That's like a payment plan. That's not usually a very good option. Most people just get on a payment plan and usually fail on the payment plan. So that oftentimes doesn't work out that great. You have solo settle, solo suit, make it easy to respond and then get it settled. We're very different from a debt settlement firm. We're really not a debt settlement firm at all. We just connect the consumer with the collector to get the debt settled.

So we're connecting the two parties and establishing trust between 'em to help you guys get the debt settled. And then you have other things. You have debt consolidation. What I would consider debt consolidation is where you get a new loan for all of your other loans. So let's say you have five loans, five debts, you're going to get a new loan to finance all of those debts and turn it into a single payment. That can be a good option. You're probably going to get a very high interest rate on that new loan, but it's really just a matter of math. You'd have to do the math to figure out if it's a better deal to have a new loan with this interest rate, making a single payment or make payments on all these other five debts. Oftentimes a single payment's just a lot easier to manage, so it could very well be worth it. And then you have things like credit counseling where you have a credit counselor that gets you on to some kind of a payment plan on pre-law debts.

Those can be useful, but in my mind it seems like somewhat of a limited value there. And then you have a traditional debt settlement firms a as where you'll enroll all of your debts into this escrow account. You'll make payments on saving up to make a settlement, and then eventually, 12 months down the road, maybe 24 months, you'll start getting some of these accounts settled over time. So those are some of the various options in this space. Up to you on what you want to go with. I'd say it totally depends on the debt consolidation firm. There's debt consolidation firms that are super sketch, there's debt consolidation firms that are totally legit. So just you want to look into those things. Okay, we got a question from my favorite things. Can I go to Superior Court to file directly my answer to a debt lawsuit from Discovery Bank here in California? Yes. I'd say yeah, if you want to show up and file in person, you can do that and just file it into the court in person.

Lester (23:57):

Yeah, I think that would be probably the easiest way to surveil to respond to these lawsuits and to sort of move forward.

George (24:05):

So you can file in person, you can also civil suit to file. Right? So we make it easy for you to file and you can pay us, we'll file the document for you. We got a question from Sid. I've been sued. I have filed with the court. Nice. Good job. Sounds like you got the first thing taken care of. What happens to my lawsuit if I file chapter seven bankruptcy? So if you file chapter seven bankruptcy, the bankruptcy attorney you're working with should file a stay, which will pause the lawsuit and then hopefully the debt and the debt lawsuit can get expunged in bankruptcy. There are exceptions if the lawsuit is for your house or something like a mortgage debt or for tax debt or for student loans.

Lester (24:45):

And that's one I think too where you'd want to make sure you're communicating that with the court as well, or double checking the courts receiving that communication from the bankruptcy courts.

George (24:53):

That's a good tip. Yep. We definitely want to make sure yourself that things are moving along well. We got a question from a pig farmer. Yep. I've been sued and they got a default judgment and now I have a lien on my homestead. What's your experience with liens, Lester? Any light you can shine on liens,

Lester (25:14):

They happen. They happen in many states. Oftentimes you likely don't find yourself getting foreclosed on by having a judgment lien against you all the time. But it could happen in some states and it could happen depending on the laws of the state where you live. So there's not universal advice there, but liens are a tool used to recoup debts that people have and we see plenty of the large plaintiffs who are filing these lawsuits also seek out liens on people's properties. So when you do go to sell your home or you do go to refinance your home, or if they are in a state where they can force the sale of your home, they'll be able to get recouped.

George (26:02):

Do you have a sense of how common liens are in?

Lester (26:06):

Yeah, I don't have great numbers on how common they are. We do see it. I wouldn't say we see it a ton. I don't think it's something that happens with most lawsuits, but it certainly happens with many lawsuits. I just don't have good numbers on it. But when we do look at property records, we'll look and see companies, debt buying companies and things like that with liens on a person's property. I think the first thing that has to happen is that you have to own property that they can put a lien on. And so that eliminates the segment of people who are getting sued for a debt collection lawsuit who maybe don't own their own home and things like that. But yeah, we definitely see it. We just don't have great data on how often it happens. We also know anecdotally that sometimes those liens can also get sold to other people. So to confuse the situation even more, you might find another company one day to sort of purchase the lien against your home.

George (27:08):

Right. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay, well we've got time for one more question and then we wrap up at, since it's half past the hour, got a question from Holly. Good evening. I have court in December. A hospital is suing me for about 2300 lawyers are taking me to court on the hospital's behalf. What kind of settlement do you think I should offer, Lester, do you have any sense of, is medical debt, is that something that people are commonly sued for?

Lester (27:38):

Yeah, medical debt's a huge driver of lawsuits for people, not always from the original hospital itself. Sometimes we see it from debt buyers and from credit cards to people put things on. But a good chunk of debt collection lawsuits will be hospital debt or some sort of medical debt of some kind, dentist, doctors, whatever, sort of things like that. So yeah, we see a large portion, I think in the state of Utah, actually about a third of the debts we looked at in that state were related to a medical bill. One third.

George (28:13):

And that could be, would that include if the lawsuit is for a medical bill as well as if it is related to a medical bill, if the consumer paid a bill on their credit card and then they're being sued for that credit card

Lester (28:28):

Included, it would've ignored in that case the credit card ones. So it's probably higher than that. The one third of medical debt cases in Utah was related to original hospitals suing a person or medical providers suing a person, and then debt buyers suing a person for medical debt, where we could see in the case documents it was a medical debt or third party debt collectors suing for medical debt in their own name where we could look through the documents and say, yes, this is a hospital system and things like that. So yeah, medical debt, at least in many states that we're looking at most, 20 30% of the overall docket is definitely medical debt. And then we know obviously there's a credit card and things like that, it's even higher. One of the fun facts about credit cards is even your medical credit card, when it goes to court, like a medical credit card you might take out at a doctor's office or a dentist to pay for a procedure that will show up in court as a credit card debt that won't show up in court as a medical bed.

George (29:29):

And these are the situations where you're on the hospital bed, it just broke your leg and then somebody comes in and asks you to sign for a credit card to move forward with a procedure. Yeah, yeah.

Lester (29:42):

It's usually to move forward with a procedure. It's not always, I don't think that might be maybe an extreme situation, but maybe you've got a toothache and you go to the dentist and you can't afford it and the dentist says, Hey, here's this credit card that you could sign up for that'll take care of it. So those are the ones that we see that that gets commingled with all the private cards and things like that. Fascinating.

George (30:04):

Okay. Yeah. So Holly, you're being sued for 2300. What kind of settlement? The settlement ranges that we see are, if you're being sued, it's probably going to settle between 50 to 85% if you use solo settle as marketplace to get the thing settled. Our average is 70%. It's a big range. Sometimes people settle for zero. We've had debts get totally forgiven on the platform for severe medical hardship. Sometimes debts settle for a hundred percent of the face value because people just know they owe the debt and they just want to pay the whole thing. So you can move over to solo settle and you can make an offer to the collector to get that settled. So that's kind of the range that you'd be working with with the $2,300 debt. All right. I hope you get that all covered and paid off. Alright folks, thanks for showing up today. Very glad to be here, Lester, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Lester (31:04):

Yeah, thank you for having me.

George (31:05):

Is there a place that people can go to find out more about your research or to follow you online?

Lester (31:11):

Yeah, sure. So if you're interested in the research that we do, a pew pew trusts.org, that's PEW trusts.org/modern legal. We'll take you to our website that has all of our work on courts and communities that we work on.

George (31:31):

Nice. Lemme just put that into the chat for everybody on here. All right. Just putting that in here. And there you go. You got pew trusts.org/modern legal. You can check out what it looks like, understand the landscape better for debt lawsuits.

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How to Answer a Summons for debt collection in all 50 states

Here's a list of guides on how to respond to a debt collection lawsuit in each state:

The Ultimate 50 State Guide

Debt collector guides

Are you being contacted by a debt collector? We're making guides on how to resolve debt with each one.

Arbitration

If the thought of going to court stresses you out, you're not alone. Many Americans who are sued for credit card debt utilize a Motion to Compel Arbitration to push their case out of court and into arbitration.

Below are some resources on how to use an arbitration clause to your advantage and win a debt lawsuit.

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy is a great way to legally resolve debt, but it's usually best to consider it as a last resort. Here are some bankruptcy guides to help you decide which debt resolution option is best for you.

Check your case status

Don't have time to go to your local courthouse to check the status of your case? We've created state guides on how to check the status of your case throughout the US, complete with online search tools and court directories.

Credit

Debt has a big impact on your credit. Below is a list of guides on how to repair and improve your credit, even while managing major debt, along with other credit-related resources.

Debt collection FAQs

Find answers to some of our the most commonly-asked questions about debt collection below.

Debt collection documents and templates

If you're dealing with debt, these documents and templates will help you respond, protect your rights, negotiate, and resolve your debts.

Debt relief

We've created a specialized guide on how to find debt relief in all 50 states, complete with steps to take to find relief, state-specific resources, and more.

Debt settlement

Debt settlement is one of the most effective ways to resolve a debt and save money. We've created state guides on debt settlement. Find out how to settle in your state with a simple click and explore other debt settlement resources below.

Eviction

Facing an eviction? The following guides will help you navigate your situation with confidence.

Federal debt collection laws

Knowing your rights makes it easier to stand up for your rights. Below, we've compiled all our articles on federal debt collection laws that protect you from unfair practices.

Helping people find access to justice is at the heart of Solo's misison. If you're dealing with a legal debt issue, the following guides will help you through it.

Medical debt

Having a health challenge is stressful, but dealing with medical debt on top of it is overwhelming. Here are some resources on how to manage medical debt.

Personal finance

Learn how to manage your finances and overcome crushing debt. Check out our personal finance guides below.

State debt collection laws

Debt collection laws vary by state, so we have compiled a guide to each state's debt collection laws to make it easier for you to stand up for your rights—no matter where you live.

Statute of limitations on debt

Like all debt collection laws, the statute of limitations on debt varies by state. So, we wrote guides on each state's statutes and more.

Stop collection calls

Do you keep getting calls from an unknown number, only to realize that it's a debt collector on the other line? If you've been called by any of the following numbers, chances are you have collectors coming after you, and we'll tell you how to stop them.

Wage garnishment

Forgot to respond to your debt lawsuit? The judge may have ordered a default judgment against you, and with a default judgment, debt collectors can garnish your wages. Here are our guides on how to stop wage garnishment in your state, plus other wage garnishment resources.

The Debt Hotline

Hosted by Team Solo, The Debt Hotline breaks down debt and personal finance topics with help from attorneys, financial experts, and industry pros. We respond to real questions to help you navigate debt with knowledge and courage.

Other debt resources