The same problem, five very different lives.
The work usually starts in the same spot. Somebody has built something real, the money got complicated, and no one ever sat down and laid the whole thing out in plain terms. Here are five situations I run into a lot. How I think through each one, and what changes once you can finally see the whole picture.
These are illustrative composites, not actual clients. Figures are hypothetical and used to make each situation concrete. Nothing here is a promise of results, and every real engagement looks different.
A portfolio nobody could actually explain.
They did everything right. Hired an advisor, signed off on a portfolio that sounded smart, felt like their wealth had finally unlocked the “institutional” stuff. Years later the “quarterly liquidity” wouldn’t give their money back, and they realized most of their net worth was stuck in funds nobody could really explain.
Read the case →A firm that wins cases but never planned its own.
Three name partners, a contingency practice, and income that showed up in lumps. The founder wanted out in seven years. There was no succession plan, no retirement plan worth the name, and no strategy at all for the tax bill in a big settlement year.
Read the case →A great year is also a tax problem.
Her channel went from a side hustle to about $1.2 million a year in three years. The growth was real and steady. The money showed up in uneven chunks, all of it taxed as ordinary income, and none of it was actually being managed.
Read the case →An estate everyone could measure and no one could move.
The patriarch had died. The family knew the estate was worth north of $25 million. A business stake, public accounts, insurance, real estate, a couple of private funds. They knew the number. They had no idea what to do next, and the clock was already running.
Read the case →Suddenly liquid, still concentrated.
A founder in his fifties sold his company to a private equity buyer. The money came in pieces. Cash at close, rollover equity, an earnout later. One enormous tax year, a stake he couldn’t sell, and for the first time in decades, no paycheck and no business to run.
Read the case →Begin a conversation
If any of this sounds familiar, let’s talk.
A short conversation usually tells both of us whether I’m the right fit. If I’m not, I’ll say so.
Schedule an introduction →