What Criminal Defense Attorneys Should Know About Their Clients' Bail Bondsman

Most criminal defense attorneys do not think much about which bail bondsman their client uses. They should. The bondsman is often the first professional a family contacts after an arrest — before the attorney, before anyone else. What that bondsman does in the first two hours can affect your client's relationships, their reputation, and in some cases, their case.

This is not a theoretical concern. I have watched bail bond companies buy arrest data and start calling every phone number associated with a defendant before the defendant could make a single call. A client arrested on a sensitive charge — domestic violence, a sex crime, a white collar matter — whose parents, grandparents, siblings, and employer all received calls from a stranger saying 'your family member is in jail' before the defendant could tell them anything. That is not a hypothetical. That is Tuesday in this industry.

Under California regulation 10 CCR §2071, a licensed bail agent cannot directly or indirectly recommend an attorney to anyone they have bonded. I know this rule well — I challenged it in court in 2016 (Conley v. Dave Jones, BC630383) and lost. I follow it.

What the rule does not prohibit: pointing clients to the State Bar of California's lawyer referral service, the Public Defender's office, or general information about how to find legal representation. A bail bondsman who tells your client 'call this attorney, he's my guy' is violating the law. A bail bondsman who says 'here is the State Bar referral service' is not.

The problem is that the referral kickback system runs quietly through this industry. Bondsmen recommend attorneys. Attorneys send clients to bondsmen. Nobody says anything because the arrangement benefits everyone except the client. I have been fighting this for sixteen years. I am not going to stop.

Here is what to look for — and what to warn your clients about.

A professional bail bondsman waits for the call to come to them. They do not buy arrest data. They do not call families before the defendant can. They do not cold-call employers, neighbors, or extended family. They understand that an arrest is not a conviction and that their job is to get someone out of jail — not to broadcast the arrest to everyone in the defendant's life.

A predatory bail bondsman does the opposite. They buy arrest data the moment it becomes available. They call every number they can find. They use the family's panic to close a deal before anyone has time to think. They may recommend attorneys in exchange for referral fees. They may charge the full 10% when the client has a legal right to pay less.

The difference matters to your practice because a client who has been cold-called into a bond by a predatory company is a client who is already in crisis before you even get the case.

Proposition 103 classifies bail bonds as insurance in California. Insurance law requires that the best available price be offered to every customer. The 10% premium is not a legal floor — it is a ceiling the industry invented and enforced through intimidation.

I was the first bail agent in California to say this publicly, in writing, on the record. In 2014, I wrote the only clear public statement from a California bail agent explaining that Proposition 103 allows premium rebates. The industry came after me. A federal antitrust class action — Crain v. Accredited Surety and Casualty Company — later cited that statement as evidence that the truth was publicly available and the industry suppressed it anyway. Several defendants in that case reached proposed settlements totaling $69.4 million.

Your client has a right to ask about pricing. If they are paying 10% when they could be paying less, that is money that could go toward your fee, their family's stability, or their defense. I will tell them the truth about this. Most bondsmen will not.

I have been licensed since 2008. CDI License #1845390. No disciplinary actions. In 2015, I wrote 'Demystifying the Bail Bond Process' — an approved one-hour MCLE course for attorneys.

I do not cold-call. I do not pay referral fees. I do not recommend attorneys to clients I have bonded — I follow §2071. If your client gives me your name, I call you, not their mother.

I serve clients in five languages: English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Korean, and Farsi. I take five payment methods. My clients can apply from a phone at 2am. I built the most comprehensive resource directory in Southern California — attorneys, investigators, rehab, recovery services, no referral fees — because I was legally prohibited from answering the question families always ask and I built the next best thing.

I also built The Road Back — a full post-release guidance section for clients who need help staying out after bail is posted. Nobody else in this industry built that. I did it because I have been where your clients are.

I don't judge the people who call me, and I don't ask you to judge me by anything but what I've built: nearly twenty years in bail, a stand for fair pricing, a stand in court, and a free Resource Directory with no referral fees.