One of my favorite sayings is that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” To me, it means that good intentions could have some bad results.
A big part of my practice has been helping advisors and brokers get business, either through serving as counsel or trying to partner up and get clients together.
A few years back, I met a broker who really wanted to put a name out for himself and he really liked my discussions regarding plan expenses, good third party administrators (TPAs), and overall fiduciary responsibility issues.
This broker was prospecting a former client of mine when I was the head attorney at a New York third party administration firm. I was giving him some insight on issues that probably would help him get that client.
Well apparently, some of that insight helped as he got the client. The broker told me that the client was changing plan administrators, changing to a payroll provider TPA that I’m not too fond of because this payroll provider works well with this broker’s platform.
Clearly, some of my discussions didn’t rub off too well as one of my issues is any broker or financial advisor having the plan sponsor change providers, just so they could get paid easier. Whether this former client of mine ends up in a worse situation that where they were before is up for debate, but somehow some of my work led to what I think is an unfavorable result.
Sometimes, the best of intentions lead to great results and sometimes it doesn’t.