The following is for informational purposes only and is designed to give examples of the actual experiences of the writer in preparing over 500 Bankruptcy Petitions and is not to be construed as Practicing or Interpreting the Law or the giving of Legal Advice.

This is always an interesting question because the majority of people filing Bankruptcy already have really bad credit and lots and lots of derogatory information on their credit reports.
There are certain key factors to minimizing how the Bankruptcy filing affects your credit and how to take advantage of the Bankruptcy filing to reestablish good credit.

Yes the Bankruptcy is going to show up on your credit report for 10 years after it is filed.  But remember, it shows up on your credit as a line item under the Public Records section of your Credit Report, it’s not a big  BANKRUPTCY  sign in capital bold letters that shows up diagonally across every page of your Credit Report. 
Filing a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy is like drawing a line in the sand.  All the bad credit should be on one side of the line and all the new credit should be on the other side of the line.  The key to this happening is all about being proactive with the way your Bankruptcy is filed and how you reestablish credit after the Bankruptcy.
Due to changes that were recently enforced by the current Administration, the credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion must properly report your credit history after your Bankruptcy is discharged.  For each account that was included in the Bankruptcy , they are supposed to show a "$0" balance on that account and show it as "included in Bankruptcy" .  This is one of the good parts about drawing that line in the sand.  When the credit reporting agencies do their job right, it limits the amount of damage the Bankruptcy does to your credit as you move forward.

So:
Number 1:
Make sure that when your Bankruptcy is prepared, that it is as comprehensive as possible by including every single creditor and potential creditor including collectors that may be working on the account.  Make sure you personally review all three credit reports and make sure everyone listed on those reports  as well as any other notices that you have gotten are included in your Bankruptcy debt schedules.  By not including as much information as possible on the Bankruptcy Petition, you will have a harder time getting your credit reports corrected after the Bankruptcy.  The credit reporting agencies have the power to fix things on your credit report even if you can’t get the creditor to agree to it if that debt was listed in the Bankruptcy.
Don’t let your Attorney or Petition Preparer give you that song and dance about "all creditors and debt are included as of the day of filing whether they are listed or not".  That may be true but it doesn’t help you get your credit reports fixed after the Bankruptcy is filed.

Number 2:
Don’t say to yourself that you are never going to owe any money again.  The longer you wait after your Bankruptcy to start reestablishing credit, the longer it will take for you to have acceptable credit scores.  This must absolutely be done in the most responsible way.  You will have hundreds of credit offers coming to you the minute your Bankruptcy is filed, do not accept them.  You should hire a Certified Credit  Expert like Terry Greene AT  Terry Greene, LLC , at  http://www.readyforafreshstart.com  .  He can direct you on how you can rebuild great credit scores by getting a small amount of credit and handling it in the most disciplined manner.    Remember, most home lenders like FHA  and FNMA will lend you money to buy a home two years after your Bankruptcy if you have responsibly  reestablished a couple of credit lines.