Most of the time, if you need to secure bail bonds for a family member, you just look up "bail bondsman" online. Yet, what if there are dozens of bail bonds-persons in your area? How can you choose? It is not as though one or more are going to jump off the page at you or offer you something quite different than the next. What you need is a referral to a bail bonds-person that will do his or her best to help you. Here is how that might work, and what you need to know.

Ask Your Lawyer

Your family member has a lawyer to represent him/her. The family lawyer may know a few bonds-people with which the lawyer has interacted on a regular basis. The lawyer can refer you to one or more of them that the lawyer thinks will be helpful in your given situation.

Meet with ALL of the Names Mentioned by the Lawyer

You should not get a bail bond without first meeting with each of the bail bonds-persons to whom you have been referred to. You might be surprised at the slight differences in which each of these folks conducts business. You may also want to find a bail bondsman or bondswoman that you click with; this is someone you can trust to speak plainly and offer a variety of ways to secure a bail bond without losing your home or the shirt on your back.

Choose the Bail Bonds Company 

If your family member was arrested on a Thursday, arraigned on a Friday, and incarcerated over the weekend, guess what? You have all weekend to find the right bail bonds company and agent anyway. No one would be working down in the jailhouse who could release your family member on a Saturday or Sunday.

That gives you all of that time to find an agent/company and select them carefully. Additionally, it is very unusual to be arraigned that quickly, since such things only happen on TV. So, you have more time than you realize to find a lawyer, make contact, get the short list of bail bonds-people and be referred to the best, and spend the weekend-plus getting the bail bond to release your family member within the next few days.

Take the Bond to the Lawyer or to the Jail as Soon as You Can

Most bail bond agents are able to fill out the proper paperwork while you wait. Then you can either take the bail bond to the lawyer to get the lawyer to release your family member or take the bail bond to the jailhouse bright and early on the next weekday morning. Your family member will have to wait while the jailhouse officers fill out release paperwork.