Peter Myers' Blog

Client vs. Adviser Loyalty: Must It Be and Adverse Relationship?

Client Loyalty: An Anecdote

Client loyalty can be difficult— on at least one occasion, I’ve had to write a client to share discovery of an investment manager’s malpractice.  In my litigation past, I have had to sue lawyers, accountants, bankers, and investment advisers for fraud, elder financial abuse, unsuitable advice, mistakes, and breaches of fiduciary duty and loyalty.  It is never pleasant to be in such a lawsuit, and there are no winners.

So how the heck do we deal with this while trying to build a referral network?  Who wants to refer a client to a lawyer who might sue them?

Who the Heck Are Our Clients, Really?

Ideal Circumstance for Attorney-Client Relationship

I get a lot of calls from people inside my social circles who want me to teach a seminar or host an event that has something loosely to do with money.  The conversation almost inevitably boils down to a few basic questions: (1) by the way, what exactly do you do? [to make a living, that is]; (2) who hires you to do that? [aka, "could the world be so specialized that there is a demand for your arcane services?]

In this little blawg I'm going to write about this.  I'll use the "liquidity event" motif as exemplary, but not exclusive to this issue.

Attention All Life Insurance Professionals: a Friendly Colleague Wants to Work With You

Yes, totally unconventional title, I know.  But look: life insurance pros and The Myers Law Firm share a lot in common: we have the unpleasant but necessary task of discussing uncomfortable things with people about protecting what they have for the people they love.  On the one hand - talking about leaving a legacy and overcoming your mortality, caring for your loved ones - its God's work.  On the other - talking about death - yikes!  Where's our robe and scythe?

Should I Disinherit My Estranged Child?

A good friend of mine Josh Coleman is, among other things, a world-famous therapist in the genre known as 'control mastery theory,' which is a branch of psychotherapy that relies upon nurturing and developing the client's own subconscious plan for mental health.  Just as the body has built-in processes for healing, so does the mind.  As you might imagine, such a philosophy dovetails well with the client-centric estate planning we espouse in our firm and on this blog.  So I am always interested in what Josh has to say about issues of estate planning.

In Dr. Coleman's October newsletter, he posted an answer to the question a client posed whether or not to leave an estranged child out of a will.  I cannot do justice to his answer without quoting it in full, so - with Josh's permission - you will see the entire Q&A reprinted below.

Measuring Out My Life With Coffee Spoons

The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock could well have been written by an old man contemplating his estate plan.  In Prufrock, T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) weaves together the following lines:

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

The narrator of the poem is reflecting on his long life, and all throughout the City of his narration there is yellow fog, yellow smoke, that is mysterious and unknown, and which nevertheless settles about the house in a sort of restless peace.