Broker Protocol Compliance Checklist for Breakaway Advisors: What You Can Take, What You Cannot, and Where Software Draws the Line
The Broker Protocol lets a departing advisor take five pieces of client information and nothing else: client name, address, phone number, email, and account title for clients they personally serviced. Take a statement, an account number, or a client list outside that scope, and you have stepped outside the Protocol's litigation shield. Everything in a compliant breakaway starts from that boundary.
Most advisors leaving a wirehouse fixate on the resignation letter and the first client call. The part that actually generates legal exposure is the data you carry across the line. A Protocol breakaway is not a license to copy your book. It is a narrow, specific permission, and the discipline is in respecting its edges.
What the Broker Protocol actually permits
The Protocol for Broker Recruiting exists to reduce litigation when advisors move between member firms. In exchange for staying inside its rules, you get a shield against the firm suing you for taking the permitted information. The permitted set is deliberately small.
| You can take | You cannot take |
|---|---|
| Client name | Account numbers |
| Client address | Account statements or positions |
| Client phone number | Performance reports or returns data |
| Client email address | Social Security or tax ID numbers |
| Account title for serviced clients | Any client you did not personally service |
The list on the right is where breakaways get into trouble. Copying a statement to "remember the holdings" feels harmless and is not permitted. Pulling the full household list when you only serviced part of it is not permitted. The Protocol is specific on purpose, and a single overreach can cost you the shield for the entire move.
One more constraint that gets missed: you can only take information for clients you personally serviced. Team structures blur this. If you were one of three advisors on a household, your claim to that relationship is not automatic, and the firm you are leaving will read the Protocol narrowly.
The membership question comes first
None of the permitted-data rules matter if both firms are not Protocol members on your resignation day. The Protocol only protects moves between two member firms. Your new RIA entity has to be a signatory before you resign, and the timing of that registration carries its own risk, because registering too early can signal your departure to the firm you are leaving.
This is the single most common way a breakaway goes wrong before it starts. Confirm membership for both the firm you are leaving and the entity you are joining or forming, and document that confirmation. The mechanics of that verification, including joinder timing, are covered in this Broker Protocol eligibility checklist for confirming both firms are members. Do that work before anything else on this page.
Where software draws the line
Here is the question every breakaway advisor eventually asks: what can I automate, and what needs an attorney? The honest answer is that software handles the operational repapering and an attorney handles the legal judgment. They do not overlap, and treating one as a substitute for the other is where advisors get hurt.
Software is the right tool for:
- Building the new-account paperwork once the client agrees to move
- Extracting account titles and registration details from documents to pre-fill forms and cut NIGO
- Tracking ACATS submissions and reject reason codes so transfers do not stall
- Managing the repapering pipeline across dozens of households at once
An attorney is the right resource for:
- Reading your specific employment agreement and any non-solicit terms
- Judging whether your move qualifies for Protocol protection given your team structure
- Advising on Reg S-P and privacy obligations for the data you carry
- Responding if the firm you left sends a cease-and-desist or seeks a restraining order
The clean mental model: the lawyer tells you what you are allowed to do, and the platform helps you do the permitted work fast. FastTrackr's advisor transition platform sits entirely on the operational side of that line, and its document intelligence for statements and account forms is built to compress the repapering window without touching anything that belongs to legal counsel. For a sense of what that compression looks like in practice, this advisor transition case study shows the outcome on a real book.
The pre-resignation checklist
Run this before you submit your resignation:
- Confirm both firms are current Protocol members and save the evidence.
- Form or join your new RIA entity and make it a Protocol signatory, timed to avoid early signaling.
- Identify exactly which clients you personally serviced and which you do not have a clean claim to.
- Prepare to carry only the five permitted fields, in a clean format, for those clients.
- Have an attorney review your employment agreement for non-solicit or garden-leave terms the Protocol does not override.
- Stage your repapering workflow so new-account paperwork can move the moment a client says yes.
Consultants who run breakaways at scale build this into a repeatable playbook rather than rediscovering it each time. If you are advising multiple advisors through this, the workflow tooling for transition consultants is designed to standardize exactly these steps across a portfolio of moves.
The breakaways that stay clean are not the ones that move fastest. They are the ones that respect the five-field boundary, confirm membership before resigning, and keep legal judgment with the lawyer and operational speed with the software.
Frequently asked questions
What five data fields does the Broker Protocol permit? The Protocol permits client name, address, phone number, email address, and account title, but only for clients the advisor personally serviced. It does not permit account numbers, statements, positions, performance data, or any client the advisor did not service. Taking anything beyond the five fields can forfeit the Protocol's litigation shield.
Does the Broker Protocol cover my move if my old firm left the Protocol? No. The Protocol only protects transitions between two member firms. If the firm you are leaving has withdrawn, your move is a non-protocol breakaway with different rules and higher legal exposure, and you should involve an attorney before taking any client information.
What part of a breakaway needs an attorney rather than software? An attorney handles legal judgment: whether your move qualifies for Protocol protection, what your employment agreement permits, Reg S-P privacy obligations, and any litigation response. Software handles the operational repapering, document extraction, and ACATS tracking once you know what you are legally allowed to do.
Can I take a client list if I built the relationships myself? Only for clients you personally serviced, and only the five permitted fields. Building the relationship does not expand what you can carry. If you were part of a team, your claim to a household may be contested, so confirm your servicing role before assuming the relationship is yours to take.
