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nancial in Depew, N. Y., who also went to Raymond James; and Brent Bridenback in Cle Elum, Wash., who went to Osaic.)

Adam Spiegelman, the founder of Spiegelman Wealth Management, says he was already heading in the RIA direction before the sale to LPL was announced, and in fact had already dropped his Finra license a few years ago to become feeonly. But he wasn’ t sure if he would plant his RIA at Commonwealth or branch out on his own.

“ There was going to be a transition anyway. So, it’ s something we’ ve been thinking of and so this transition forced me to go out and look,” he says of his decision to open his own RIA.“ And quite frankly, going from a boutique advisory firm to something that was publicly traded, maybe 30,000 advisors, didn’ t feel like it was going to be a good fit for our clients, just because there were so many unknowns.”

He says he’ s heard from Common-

wealth colleagues wanting to know how things are going, and they’ re talking about their own plans.“ Some of them are thinking of leaving in the next few months and others are kind of in a‘ wait-and-see how things turn out’ at LPL,” he says.

Spiegelman adds that his time at Commonwealth was the best seven years of his 25-year career.

None of the other advisors who left to start their own RIA returned calls for comment. However, Reddit chat rooms are buzzing about the options facing Commonwealth-affiliated advisors.

“ It’ s been a rough few months for a lot of us who made the move to Commonwealth with one set of expectations, only to watch everything shift almost overnight,” wrote a user named“ BigTipEnergy747” in a thread last month.“ Now that the dust is( somewhat) settling, I’ m starting to focus less on what happened to us, and more on what we can do next.”

He asked other advisors:“ Are you considering tucking in, going RIA, merging up, or staying put but evolving internally?”

Another user, this one named“ Top- Finger6712,” replied:“ We will sign and begrudgingly accept to stay for at least a couple of years. Will look to move to a true RIA at some point. Gives us time to figure things out.”

And a user named“ Independent- Bee _ 1836” wrote:“ Most Commonwealth advisors I know are going the RIA route and are fed up at this point. Some are thinking of joining the larger RIAs that will provide some of the same support and tech that LPL [ does ]. One interesting metric that was being used to evaluate new RIAs was how‘ tech friendly’ they are— have they implemented some of the latest tools( e. g., Jump, Zeplyn, Finny ai, Powder). If so, that is typically a sign they are forward-thinking and will be around for a while.”

30 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 2025 WWW. FA-MAG. COM