Compulsory use of a bondsman does not sound like it would be legal. We need Albaby to render a decision.

Caveat - I am not a criminal lawyer, so I have no real visibility into the mechanics of posting bail.

I'm quite sure that a defendant in GA would always have the option of just posting the amount of the bond in cash without using an intermediary. But it may indeed be the case that if you're going to post a bond for compensation on behalf of a third party, you might need to have a license.

Though if I had to guess, I would lean more towards administrative convenience than anything else. Posting a surety bond probably involves forms and procedure and whatnot, both to post it and to recover the bond once the trial is over. It's probably just easier to use a company that's in the business of doing that. A bond company's going to know how to do it with no learning curve - why bother reinventing the wheel?

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