How to check an advisor before, or after, you hire one

Search the firm by name. Its page here shows the Form ADV essentials in one place: reported assets, how the firm is compensated (the fee flags from Item 5.E, rendered as sentences), services, custody, and whether the firm answered yes to any disciplinary or legal question on Item 11.

What to note down: the firm's CRD number (on its page here), whether commissions appear among its compensation methods, and the disciplinary flag. Those three drive the questions in the next steps.

If you are still deciding which firms to look at, you can also browse the largest SEC-registered firms by state.

This happens constantly, and it usually does not mean anything is wrong. A large share of local advisory practices with their own name, logo, and website are not registered firms at all. They are marketing names ("doing business as" names) used by one or a few advisors who are registered representatives of a much larger firm, and only that parent firm files Form ADV. A practice called something like "Smith Wealth Management" may really be two people operating under Northwestern Mutual, Ameriprise, LPL Financial, Raymond James, or a similar network, and the public record sits under the parent's name, not the one on the sign.

This site's search covers most of that case: search the advisor's own name, not the name on the door. It checks the individual investment adviser representatives in the SEC's IAPD data and also runs a live check of the SEC's individual records, which include broker-only registrations, so a person at a storefront practice is usually findable by name even though the storefront itself is not registered as anything. The honest gaps that remain: the storefront name itself has no public record to match, and insurance-only agents are licensed by states and not covered here at all. For those, the manual routes below still work.

Three quick ways to find the firm behind the name:

• Read the fine print at the bottom of the practice's website. A line like "Securities offered through..." or "Investment advisory services offered through..." names the registered firm. Search that name here and on IAPD. A web address ending in a parent company's domain (for example, nm.com for Northwestern Mutual) is the same tell.
• Search the individual advisor's name on BrokerCheck or IAPD. Their report lists their current employer, which is the registered firm whose record you want.
• Ask for the practice's Form CRS. It is issued by the registered firm, so the name on that document is the real one.

One more gap to know about: this site's database is the SEC's monthly Form ADV release, which covers SEC-registered firms (generally those managing $100 million or more) and exempt reporting advisers. Smaller firms register with their state instead, and those appear on IAPD but not here. If a small independent firm is missing from this search, check IAPD before concluding anything.

This site summarizes; the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site (adviserinfo.sec.gov) is the primary record. Search the firm name or CRD number. From the firm's summary page you can open its full Form ADV, its brochure (Part 2A, where the complete fee schedule lives), and its relationship summary.

If the firm reported disclosures, IAPD shows the actual events under the firm's Disclosures section: what was alleged, which regulator or court, the resolution, and the date. Read them; a 15-year-old state registration lapse and a recent fraud order both set the same yes flag on Item 11, and only the detail pages tell them apart.

Now the person. Search their name on IAPDand on FINRA's BrokerCheck; the two systems share data, and a person registered both as an investment adviser representative and as a broker appears in both. The individual report shows current and past employers, licensing exams, state registrations, and any disclosure events: customer disputes, regulatory actions, terminations, personal bankruptcies, and criminal matters.

Whether the person shows up as adviser, broker, or both also answers the standard-of-conduct question from the fiduciary page: it tells you which rules applied to which years of their career, and which hat they can wear for you now.

This is where honest reading matters most, in both directions. A customer-dispute entry is an allegation record, not a verdict. It stays on the report whether the claim settled, was denied, or was withdrawn, and firms sometimes settle weak claims because defending them costs more. One old, denied dispute on a 30-year career is close to noise.

In the other direction, do not over-discount a pattern. Several disputes with similar allegations, settlements with meaningful dollar amounts, a regulatory action, or a termination for cause are exactly the signals these databases exist to surface. And absence of entries is not a guarantee of anything; most of the conduct that damages clients (high fees, unsuitable but defensible products) never generates a reportable event at all. The dispute record answers "has a tribunal or employer flagged this person," not "is this person good."

For the events themselves, the report shows the firm's or rep's side too: each entry can carry a broker comment. Read the allegation, the resolution, and the comment together, and treat "settled, no admission" as what it is: unresolved on the merits.