Mitigating Fiduciary Liability Risk

Trust law imposes definite portfolio management standards of care, skill and caution. Our approach is intended to help fiduciaries demonstrate that they have met these standards. We use several strategies to help fiduciaries mitigate exposure to litigation risk:

  • Academic Rationale: modern standards of fiduciary prudence are founded upon scientific discoveries in financial economics. All our work is aimed at applying these findings to the practical management of client portfolios.
  • Procedural Prudence: the greatest threat to portfolio performance is the temptation to make hasty, ad hoc decisions on the basis of short-term market fluctuations. We help trust clients avoid this risk by adopting, documenting and following formal portfolio management procedures, which define a defensible approach for conducting trust investment business.
  • Investment Policy: in today’s turbulent markets, it can sometimes be a challenge to adhere to a long-term strategy, or even to recall why it was adopted in the first place. We provide fiduciaries with a comprehensive written Investment Policy Statement that explicates the scientific rationale for the portfolio’s long-term strategy, and that supports construction of prudent, diversified, economical portfolios.

These measures impose discipline on the trust portfolio. Trustees can then demonstrate that their investment decisions explicitly derive from prudent, scientifically supported long-term strategy.