Yes.  In California, most expire 10 years after they are “entered”.  However, you can renew the judgment for another 10 years, as long as you do so before the first expiration date.  There are, however, some judgments that do not expire.  Examples are family support judgments and criminal restitution judgments.

Yes.  You can hire an attorney to do the work for you, or you can “assign” the judgment to another individual, who can collect the judgment in his or her own name.

Indeed, if you have successfully been awarded a judgment, the debtor is supposed to pay you the amount awarded by the court.  Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t often happen automatically.  The power of the court is limited.  We don’t have debtor’s prison in CA.  Judgment creditors can ask the debtor nicely to pay – and once in a while it works!  More often, though, it is necessary for you to work with or hire a specialist who knows how to find these deadbeat debtors and knows how to work through  the legal system to collect what the debtor owes you.

That’s not such an easy question to answer.  It is not uncommon for an experienced judgment enforcement specialist to charge you 50% of whatever they collect.  Some work for a flat or hourly fee.  Some will purchase your judgment from you, generally for pennies on the dollar.  Each individual is free to negotiate whatever arrangements they would like, and issues such as the age of the judgment, the location of the debtor, the wealth of the debtor and a myriad of other issues will all factor into how difficult the judgment is to collect    and how much a profession would want to charge to collect.  It is very important that you understand completely the agreement that you make –