SERVICES OFFERED
CATEGORY Financial Planning 99.23 % Alternative Investing 63.76 % Asset Allocation 97.29 % Bond Management 72.67 % Business Consulting 38.76 % Charitable Counseling 79.07 % Cybersecurity Protection 14.73 % Digital Advice Platform 12.98 % Equity Management 77.13 % Estate Planning 77.91 % Exchange-Traded Funds 81.01 % Fund Of Hedge Fund Selection / Oversight 22.67 % Group 401( k) Advice / Sales 54.46 % Healthcare Advice 22.87 % Hedge Fund Selection / Oversight 27.52 % Impact Investing * 48.45 % Index Funds 72.09 % Institutional Fund Management 39.73 % Insurance Planning 64.54 % Manager Selection / Oversight 60.27 % Mutual Fund Selection / Oversight 75.97 % Real Estate Investment Trusts 47.09 % Separately Managed Accounts 65.70 % Tax Planning 81.78 % Tax Preparation 28.49 %
* Category included socially responsible and sustainable investing.
ing each other as the war for talent accelerates.
A Kansas court last month tossed out a lawsuit filed in 2023 by Boston-based Edelman Financial Engines against Overland Park-based Mariner Wealth Advisors alleging theft of trade secrets when Mariner hired 10 former Edelman advisors and took with them 851clients and $ 621 million in assets. Edelman claimed it had spent $ 40 million per year on a unique lead-generation program. The judge was unimpressed, suggesting such programs were common, and that Mariner had one of its own.
Lawsuits over the poaching of advisors and their clients was once frowned upon among RIAs, who viewed them as an oily, unattractive business practice, something more common in the wirehouse world many of them had fled. With RIAs it’ s not so much about the non-competes tying advisors to their employers, say observers. It’ s about what the employees take with them.
“ The disputes we’ re seeing today are not really about whether an advisor can work somewhere else,” says Brian Hamburger, who runs his own Miami-based law firm and advisor consultancy.“ They’ re increasingly about non-solicits, no-contact and no-service provisions, confidentiality obligations, trade secrets, deferred compensation forfeitures, and data ownership.”
When advisors spend several years at a firm, they leave a large trail of data, virtually all of which is that firm’ s property.“ We’ re also seeing firms become far more sophisticated in using technology and data governance as competitive tools,” Hamburger says.“ In some respects, the industry is shifting from a world of employment restrictions to a world of information restrictions.”
Private Equity’ s Pride Of Place
It’ s difficult to overstate the influence of private equity and other outside investors on the independent advisory world. Only a decade ago, outside investment was
71.17 %
Charles Schwab
RIAs’ PRIMARY CUSTODIANS
32.56 %
Fidelity
DO YOU USE A SINGLE CUSTODIAN OR MULTIPLE CUSTODIANS?
■ One custodian 32.81 %
■ Two custodians 26.56 %
■ More than two custodians 40.63 %
Charles Schwab
8.33 %
Pershing
WHICH CUSTODIAN’ S NEW CLIENT REFERRAL PROGRAM DO YOU USE?
HOW FIRMS CHARGE FOR SERVICES
AUM Fees
Hourly
Subscription Fees 2.52 %
Other
14.92 %
26.55 % Flat Fee / Retainer
9.88 %
7.17 %
44.96 %
0.58 %
2.91 %
LPL Financial Services
81.40 %
Fidelity Pershing Other / None
97.67 %
22 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | JULY / AUGUST 2026 WWW. FA-MAG. COM