The same standard you hold yourself to.
My clients don’t all look alike, but they share a few things. They want a portfolio built with survival in mind. They want a real return above inflation over decades. They don’t care about last year’s performance.
Attorneys & partners
You understand fiduciary duty better than most, because you live under it. Partner draws, capital accounts, deferred comp, income that swings year to year: none of it behaves like a salary, so it shouldn’t be invested like one.
Pilots
Two pilots in every cockpit. Why fly your money solo? An airline career comes with big company retirement contributions, profit-sharing checks that swing with the airline’s year, and a retirement date the FAA sets at 65. The decisions pile up in the last few years: how to take the plan money, when to claim Social Security, and how to turn savings into a paycheck. You’re gone half the month. I watch the money while you’re flying.
Families thinking generationally
Your wealth has to do more than support you. It has to last into the next generation, and the one after. That’s a longer horizon than most portfolios are built for, and it’s the one I invest for.
Inheritance, settlement, or sale
An inheritance, a legal settlement, the sale of a practice or business. However it arrives, a large sum brings the same problem: the first few decisions are the hardest to undo, and everyone suddenly has an idea for your money. My advice for the first stretch is usually the same. Park it somewhere boring, don’t commit to anything big yet, and get the tax picture right before you invest. Then we build the plan.
What ties them together isn’t a job title. It’s that they want an independent advisor who invests with judgment, answers only to them, and is held to the same standard they hold themselves to. If you don’t fit neatly into any of this, that’s fine. Maybe you’re nearing retirement and trying to make sense of what you’ve built, or you just want a straight answer. If you need help, I want to help. As a fee-only firm, nothing I recommend pays me a commission.
Some of the work I’m proudest of isn’t paid at all. Every so often I’ll sit down with someone who’d never normally get this kind of help, to answer questions, talk through a decision, or point them in the right direction. It’s just help, for someone who needs it.
A conversation is the best place to start.
A short conversation usually tells both of us whether I’m the right fit. If I’m not, I’ll say so.
Get a second opinionFee-only. Fiduciary. Independent.