How to choose a professional fiduciary as trustee – and why to consider Bedrock Fiduciaries

Trust and estate planning can be a daunting task, even for experts. It involves planning for an uncomfortable eventuality; it can generate tensions between different parties whose interests you’d like to look out for; and it typically involves considerable uncertainty. Who truly knows what their circumstances will be when they pass, much less that of their intended beneficiaries? Adding to all this are the tax considerations, which can be complicated on a normal day and are all the more so when one adds uncertainty about the future – not only of oneself and one’s beneficiaries, but of tax policy itself.

Those are all reasons to work closely with a qualified trust and estate planning attorney. When you go through that process, you’ll eventually reach the point where you need to name an executor for your will, and if you have one (and those with meaningful assets generally should), a trustee for your trust. You may serve as your own trustee while living and able, but at some point – either at your death, or upon your disability – you will need a successor. Don’t leave the selection of that successor to chance; the courts will appoint one for you if you fail to do so, but that creates a lot of variability… and often damage has been done before the courts are able to make such an appointment.

This is where both corporate and private trustees come into play. Many banks and some investment advisory firms have trust departments staffed with people who will administer trusts for their clients, both living and deceased… in many cases using other services of the firm, such as investment management or retail banking services. At the other end of the spectrum are private professional fiduciaries such as Bedrock Fiduciaries and its principal, Gene Brown, who personally assume the responsibilities of trustee. This ensures a certain degree of continuity that may not be the case with larger institutions that are subject to greater turnover, but in no way precludes the engagement of specialized resources. For example, a private professional fiduciary acting as trustee will nearly always work with a professional investment advisor for trusts with significant investable assets – but unlike a corporate trustee, they have no internal investment management department to favor. Instead, they are very much at liberty to select the best professional partner for the circumstances. Private trustees are also considered more apt to get personally involved with a trust, directly supervising everything from marshalling assets to surveying property, dissecting budgets, engaging one-on-one with family members, and so on.

Either approach can work well, depending on the circumstances. Regardless of which you choose, you should always look for a few key qualities:

• Relevant knowledge and experience. The unavoidable reality of trusts is that they are widely varied, with endless unexpected circumstances. No trustee will have experience in all the possible facets of a trust, but they should have both experience with trust administration generally – practice corralling the resources needed for circumstances as they arise – and the proper training and education. We are fortunate that in California, those offering professional fiduciary services must meet strict educational and experience-based criteria (along with passing a rigorous background check) in order to attain and maintain their license. This is not so in all states.
• Independence and objectivity. Trustees must remain impartial, meaning they are committed to the terms of the trust… not to any particular beneficiary, not to any particular professional service provider (accounting services, investment advisory services, real estate management or sales, etc.).
• Continuity. In an era where banks and investment firms are constantly acquiring one another, a private professional fiduciary can often provide greater continuity. Even absent trustee succession, a private trustee will generally stay abreast of all of a trust’s affairs rather than relying on delegation throughout the enterprise.

At Bedrock Fiduciaries, we strive to provide far more than these minimum criteria demand. We compete primarily with other private professional fiduciaries and trust administrators, and feel strongly about the things that set us apart. Here are a few.

• Personal service. We have built our way of doing business around more than just the strict structural needs dictated by a trust or a power of attorney. We work hard to capture the subtleties and details so that, while always true to the terms of the trust or other governing document and consistent with the law, we are able to inject a bit more of the persona of the grantor or other party we’re representing into our decision-making.
• Accessibility. We do sleep, so we are not guaranteeing instant solutions 24/7/365. However, we have worked hard to make sure that we’re readily accessible the majority of the time – and we don’t just mean accessible to the clients and beneficiaries we work with. We mean that our systems enable us to access the critical case-specific data we need to fulfill our duties virtually anywhere, anytime, provided we have an internet connection.
• Security. Fraud, cybercrime, identity theft and other risks are a seemingly ever-growing reality of modern society. This is something we take very seriously, as demonstrated by our offer of free credit monitoring for any case we handle where the client desires it along with the extensive measures we have in place to ensure both physical and digital security of sensitive documents and data. For more details, check out our page on data security.
• Efficient use of resources. We understand that since we are not a pro bono resource, when we work to apply client or trust resources efficiently that includes efficient use of our own time. This hearkens back to the age-old saying that “time is money” – and yes, we bill by the hour. To meet our fiscal responsibility in this regard, we have invested heavily in our bespoke fiduciary system so as to minimize the time spent organizing, reorganizing, searching for details, and entering data… without compromising completeness or accuracy.
• Approachable Professionalism. We work hard to get to know our clients and beneficiaries while always maintaining the objectivity demanded of a fiduciary. Our goal is what we call approachable professionalism, and we hope you’ll find it more confidence inspiring and inviting than the sometimes-rigid approach offered by banks (or even some attorneys) or the almost-too-casual style of some financial professionals.

Taken together, these are what we feel makes us distinctive in the field. They are what comprise our core promise: Trusted, Thorough, Thoughtful.