About Chad Conley

Where I Come From

I didn't inherit a book of business or a family name in this industry. I came from the building trades.

When I was young, I made a mistake. In 1996 I was charged with felonies for marijuana. Nobody was robbed. Nobody was hurt. It was marijuana. But from that day on, I was a felon.

That label followed me everywhere. To get my contractor license, I had to petition the state, gather letters of recommendation and sit through hearings just to be allowed to work. I did it, and I built a real company. I ran CCA Builders out of Laguna Beach, built homes on PCH, took on landslide-stabilization and large remodel projects, sat on the Chamber of Commerce and served in the Rotary.

When the 2008 downturn wiped out construction, I was a single dad who needed to be there for my son during the day. Fugitive recovery let me work at night. My cousin and best friend, Matt Charles, opened that door. We went to bail school together. Matt had a heart attack before we could finish, so I took the licensing exam alone. I've carried him with me every year since.

I also worked cases with Bill Hunt, a former Orange County Sheriff's lieutenant who ran police services for San Clemente and ran for Orange County Sheriff in 2006. After he left the department, Bill ran OC Detectives, and we worked all kinds of cases together: chasing fugitives, family law surveillance, cheating spouses and the extreme hard-to-serve process service nobody else could get done. Two of Bill's sayings still guide how I explain jails to families: "The only thing consistent about government workers is their inconsistency," and "If you don't like the answer, call back after shift change."

Getting licensed as a bail agent with a felony on my record was its own fight. Same as before: a written plan, an interview, and a stack of letters from people willing to stand behind me, including a mayor of Laguna Beach and more than twenty attorneys over the years. I earned every license I hold the hard way.

Saving Families Money: Proposition 103

For years, every bail agent in California was taught the same thing: the price is 10%, period. Families believed it, and so did most agents.

I didn't buy it. With bail attorney John Rohrbaugh, I studied Proposition 103, the law California voters passed in 1988. Bail is insurance, and Prop 103 allows premium rebates. That means families can legally pay less.

In 2012 I advertised a lower net price, and in 2014 I put it in writing, publicly. I was one of the first bail agents in California to say it out loud. Nobody else would.

Not everyone liked that. The industry pushed back hard, and a complaint was filed against me with the Department of Insurance. The Department took no action. My general agent, John Savage, stood behind me when a lot of people wanted me gone, and I've never forgotten it. I kept telling families the truth.

In 2019, my 2014 statement was quoted in Crain v. Accredited Surety, a federal antitrust class action over California bail pricing. I was never a party to that case. In 2026, several defendants reached proposed settlements totaling $69.4 million, which still need the court's approval. What I said back then, the industry is still answering for today.

My Road Back

This is a hard industry. Nobody talks about that.

Every day we walk into the worst moments of people's lives: arrests, addiction, overdoses, families falling apart. Then we go home and carry it.

Criminal defense attorneys have their own recovery network, The Other Bar, where they can go to meetings with other lawyers and never sit next to their own clients. Bail agents don't have that. When we walk into a meeting, we sit in the same room as the people we bond. We deal with it at work all day long, and then we sit there and hear everybody's war stories about the same thing.

I'm an alcoholic, and I've lived that.

From 2020 to 2024, I stepped away from day-to-day bail work and went back to building. I wanted to feed the artistic side of me, be around happier people every day, and get away from the criminal mentality this job puts you in. I kept my bail license active the whole time. And for a while, it worked.

Then life fell apart. I won't go into all of it here. I ended up in my car with my two Dobermans, twenty dollars to my name, and I was drinking. Nobody would take me in with two big dogs, so I went to a campsite. Me, my dogs, my car and a dump trailer full of camping gear. That was the lowest point of my life.

That's when the call came, and the way it came still gets me. It was my cousin, the younger brother of Matt, the best friend I went to bail school with and lost before our exam. He said, "You're still a bondsman, right?" I laughed and said yeah. He said, "Then why are you leaving your friend in jail?"

That one hit hard, because I had no power to fix it. I'd been out of the industry, living at a campsite.

He meant a former judge I had known and looked up to for years. His case was one of the most closely watched in Southern California. His bail had been raised to $2 million, and he had been sitting in custody for 28 days. Four weeks. He was in there that long for a reason: it couldn't be done. Don't think every bondsman out there didn't want to make that money.

It wasn't the size of the bond. I'd written bigger bonds than that before. It was the cosigners and the collateral. Even for agents working every day, it was a tall order.

I went down to see him. I told him, "No promises. I haven't written a bond in a while." Then I went to my general agent, John Savage. Because of the reputation I'd built over the years, they trusted me. John asked me, "Is this a one-off?" I told him, "No. We're writing this bond, and I'm coming back."

I got it done, and here's why. On a bond that big, families may be handing over half a million dollars or more in cash collateral. People have to really trust you to do that. I had known the judge for years, and the cosigners knew it. They could see I was truly looking out for his best interest and theirs. That trust is what got the bond written.

I came back to this industry that day.

I don't believe that was an accident. A lot of people could have written that bond. It came to me, at the lowest point of my life, through Matt's little brother. I believe God paved the way and put me in that place for a reason. He wasn't just bringing me back to help someone else. He was bringing me back for me.

What happened next changed my life. Through months of trial prep and two trials, he and I talked about five days a week. Alcohol had been part of that terrible night. And there I was, an alcoholic myself, sitting beside a man I had admired, watching what drinking can destroy. I knew him, his wife and his son. It was like watching a hero fall. It was like the bond put me in a front-row seat to everything alcohol can destroy: a good judge, a family, a life. My thoughts remain with his wife's family.

I couldn't watch that and keep lying to myself. On April 18, 2025, I got sober, and I've stayed that way. I rebuilt my office in Pomona on my own terms: no cold calls, no referral fees, no pressure.

That's why I don't just get people out of jail. I tell them the truth: there is hope. This can be the day it turns around. And when my clients hear where I've been, they look at me and say, "Wow. You were right where I am." That's exactly why I tell this story.

Why I Understand the People Who Call Me

I don't judge the people who call me. I can't. I've been the guy in the back of the car. I've been the guy people wrote off. I've been the guy who had to fight for years to prove he was more than his worst mistake.

So I sit down with my clients. I listen. I tell them the truth, even when it costs me the bond. And I want every one of them to walk out, take care of their case and build something better.

Almost twenty years in bail. A felony I fought to clear. A stand for fair pricing that changed how this industry talks about money. A lawsuit for families against the State of California. And a road back I walk every day.

Every person who calls me, I try to help, whether they use me or not. That's who I am.

Full Disclosure

California Department of Insurance License #1845390. Active. In good standing.

I am not affiliated with any law enforcement agency. I am not an immigration agent. I post bail bonds for people arrested on criminal charges — regardless of immigration status.

I do not take referral fees from attorneys, investigators, or any service provider listed in my resource directory.

I do not purchase arrest data. I do not cold-call defendants or their families.

If you have a question about my background that isn't answered here, ask me directly. I'll tell you.