I think that a wise man gathers much counsel, and it’s definitely worth exploring all your options – both bankruptcy and non-bankruptcy. But the optimal candidate for debt settlement would be someone who really does not want to file bankruptcy, or who earns too much money to file Chapter 7 or might lose non-exempt assets if they were to file bankruptcy. Debt settlement is a rapid debt-relief program, so an optimal candidate would be someone who wants to get out of debt in 24 months or less. The other condition that is critical is that the person would have to be able to come up with roughly 50 cents on the dollar within about 18 months. That can be done in the form of a lump-sum payment or monthly payments or some combination of the two, but it’s a definite requirement for someone to be a good candidate for debt settlement.