It gives me great pleasure to tell you that everyone has stated that the convention this year was by far the best one Bail USA has ever had. I always make an effort to have subjects that are informative and educational. In order to ensure that our conventions keep getting better and better I need your advice. What topics do you want to address for next year?

Here are a few suggestions for next year:

• Avoiding large tax liability in a cash business
• How to take and file collateral in every state
• Apprehension (select a subject where you need additional information i.e. transportation, effective use of handcuffs, etc.)
• Record retention
• The use of the Bail USA network to enhance production
• Industry trends

Let me know your thoughts on the above or email me some of your ideas.

Convention News

Some comments we heard this year: “greatest convention ever – full of useful information” “WOW we feel so refreshed, energized and ready to go” “The annual meeting was very impressive, the topics and speakers were just fantastic. It was a learning experience.” “As usual you outdid yourselves. We had a wonderful time and it was truly informative.”

Meeting News

Our convention opened Sunday evening with a dinner buffet and live band. It is always a good time to renew old acquaintances and make new friendships.

Monday morning opened with our featured guest speaker – the Honorable Judge Nancy Russo of Cleveland, Ohio. Everyone present could see that she is a little dynamo as she donned her sweatshirt that says I LOVE MY BAIL AGENTS. She talked to us about easy bail and how we need to gather statistics in counties offering these programs and hold the people implementing those programs accountable for their decisions. Michael Cheselka, Jr. Esquire was also in attendance and would like to work with us to educate the legal system about bail and how effective we are in ensuring our defendants appear in court.

The next two speakers dealt with jail overcrowding and pretrial services. Dennis Williams, of Escambia, Florida and Brian Shipwash, Clerk of Courts of Davidson County, North Carolina. They were full of factual information and would be willing to help you with any problems you may have on these two subjects. The bail agent (YOU) need to stay in touch with what is happening in your area. Does your jail have an overcrowding problem? If they do you better have a good relationship with your Judges and you better stay in touch with the decision makers of the county. You need to place yourself in a position that if someone tries to implement a pretrial release or a10% bail system that you know about it. Our new friend, Brian Shipwash, is ready, willing and able to speak to people about the negatives of these systems.

We had great speakers Tuesday morning about various subjects. Captain Leicht of the Allegheny County Jail spoke about ethics for bail agents and how important it is to be a professional. Captain Leicht had a negative outlook on bondsmen until he met our group. Now he is a big supporter of our organization.

Judge William Bodoh spoke about bankruptcy and how to protect your company from losing collateral to a bankruptcy procedure. He shared a lot of information with us and if you want to hear more on this subject you need to let me know.

Steve Grobel, Esquire gave an educational lecture about the Uniformed Extradition Act. He informed us of what we have to do to protect ourselves when transporting defendants who have failed to appear for their court dates and have crossed state lines. You will find a form in this correspondence that you should use on every bond you write. Let’s think about incorporating these words into our application if you have not already done so.

Ysidro Sandoval spoke to us about managing your forfeiture and recovery agents. He suggested that recovery agents should make themselves a larger asset to the bail agent they are working for by using slow times to take the open liability to the court and check for exonerations. He stressed that this is generally low priority to bail agents but necessary and a priority to the surety and a good way to make a recovery agent invaluable to a bail agent.

When employing the use of recovery agents provide them with limited access to all aspects ofyour bail business. Sid's point was that often recovery agents see a lot of money coming in to a bail business and want to take what they learn from the bail agent to open their own agency. When the above occurs the bail agent/owner has spent many months training his own competitor. Make sure you have a non-compete agreement in your recovery agent contract.

Bail USA advertising promotion

Bail USA listens. I have heard all of you talk about wanting to learn ways to generate more business. Bail USA has teamed up with AboutBail.com and we are investing in you so that your name is advertised on their web site. More and more people are using the internet instead of yellow pages. This is our way of saying thank you for the business you write with us each and every year. Make sure you ask your clients where they received your name so that you can track what form of advertising is most effective for you.

Bail USA also listened to you when you told us you want a list of bail agents. For many years we have been hesitant to make this list public for our group. The list will be available soon on our web site www.bailusa.net. From this site you will have a sign-in process that will take you to a place where you can find a bail agent in the area you need a transfer bond written. In short we are automating the transfer bond process. It will not be mandatory that you use it but it will help to expedite the posting of bail. If you do not want your name to appear on this list you need to notify me immediately.

Vendors

We invited vendors to participate in our convention this year and they were greatly appreciated by our bail agents. The vendors included: AboutBail.com (Internet Advertising), SiteXdata (property values), IRB (information that could be used for underwriting bail or to help locate defendants who skip), Bail Bond Support Services (collection agency), American Spirit Processing (credit card machines) and Lamar Advertising (billboard advertising).

For more information on any of the vendors please contact this office.

Next year

Some of the locations we are looking at for next year’s convention are: Seattle, Washington; San Antonio, Texas; Jackson Hole, Wyoming. If you have any input into any of these areas please call us and let us know. A decision must be made by the end of this year.

I personally would like to thank everyone who came to the convention this year and request your input in helping to make the 2008 convention bigger and better.

I agree with Judge Nancy Russo – I LOVE MY BAIL AGENTS!