Judgment filed against my father ~ $20k total debt

               Hello, I just found out that my father had a judgment filed against him for his credit card debt with CitiBank and Discover.  He has some kind of a meeting with one of the lawyers who was suing him on January 8^th and I am trying to figure out what can be done to help him out.  I will try to provide whatever details I can and would greatly appreciate any advice. 

               First, the background story is that my father had to stop working a few years back due to his health.  He has worked very hard his whole life and the doctor told him that if he continued to do his job that it would completely destroy his body.  He had worked in the lumber industry for over 30 years and didn’t have any other experience that could net him a less physically demanding job.  The lumber industry did a lot of damage to him and as a result standing or sitting in one position for long periods of time causes him to hurt which, unfortunately, rules out a lot of job prospects for him.  My mother works hard as well in an office and with a substantial amount of overtime is able to keep them just above water.  Once my father lost his job he had no income what-so-ever and made some poor decisions regarding his credit card usage.  Basically, he ran up approximately $20,000 in debt between CitiBank and Discover cards over the course of roughly 2 years.  Prior to this he always had some credit card debt but made his monthly payments on time.  Having no income, he was unable to make the payments and basically ignored any communication from the creditors.  From what I have gathered today, it sounds as though he was notified that they were suing him months ago and he didn’t show up in court for it.  He attempted to file bankruptcy, but backed out of that process as there were apparently consequences which he did not expect.  The lawyer who drafted the bankruptcy paperwork charged my parents $2,000 which has only made the situation harder for them.  Today, my father told me about the meeting on the 8^th and some of the back story. 

                Normally I would be taking the time and doing a substantial amount of research into the matter, but as the meeting is coming up soon, I could really use some help from the knowledgeable people here.  From what I am reading so far, it sounds as though others have been able to settle with creditors and pay 30-40% of what they owed.  My father understands that he shouldn’t have spent the money and needs to find a way to pay them back, but he doesn’t have any way to do so.  Ideally, we would like to reach a similar settlement as others have on this forum.  I recently graduated from college and was offered a job, but it is a government job and requires a very lengthy investigation which could take a couple more months to complete.  Once I begin working I will have funds available to help my family pay off this debt if it can be negotiated to a reasonable amount.  I will continue to search the internet for information that is available, but I have no background in this sort of thing and I am trying to get caught up quickly. 

                Sorry about the long, and potentially rambling, post, however, I am very concerned with this situation and don’t want it to hurt my family too badly.  I will try to summarize my points below for anyone who doesn’t want to read through the paragraphs above.

-          My father worked hard for a long time and is now physically unable to

-          With no income he began making purchase (not all out of necessity) on credit cards with no way to pay them back. 

-          Total debt incurred is approximately $20,000

-          Ignored communication from the creditors until he was recently told they had filed a judgment against him which he needed to meet with a creditor lawyer about on January 8^th

-          I (his son) am trying to figure out what I can do next to help resolve this situation.  Ideally, we would be able to settle for 30 – 40% of the debt

-          I will be able to help make payments in a few months once my job comes through

I’m sure there is more important information which I have excluded, so please, let me know if I can provide additional details to get better information this situation.

Thank you very much for any help in advance.