A default judgement just reitterates the debt. If they don’t garnish your wages or seize your tax return or put a lein on your property, none of which they can do for most categories of debt, there is no reason to treat a judgement as anything more substantial than another harrassing letter/phone call. I’m not sure it even hits your credit report as new activity.

99% of creditors won’t bother to sue in any court that has jurisdiction over the debtor. They “sue” in “courts” that rubber-stamp all “debts”(for multiple debtors at a time) to no meaningful end, other than they can now say they took you to court and you lost, so now you should totally give them money or they’ll … “sue” again.

Depending on the state, debts with no new activity falls off your Credit History after 7 years(5 in my state). Agreeing to pay, or making a payment, counts as new activity. Don’t pay on shit that you cannot afford to pay off in full over whatever time-frame. Don’t agree to payment plans that don’t reduce the debt witt each payment.

Even if they agree to a lower total amount, it goes on your credit report as being written-off, which often has a worse effect on your score than ignoring the debt.