ABOUT THE TEAM
LEADERSHIP
Brian Hamburger, JD, CRCP
Founder and CEO
Brian Hamburger is an entrepreneur, attorney, strategic advisor, speaker, and industry commentator who has spent more than 26 years helping shape the business, strategic, and regulatory landscape of the wealth management profession.
Brian helps founders, CEOs, boards, and leadership teams build enduring businesses across the wealth management ecosystem. Throughout his career, he has advised many of the profession’s most successful entrepreneurial firms on the strategic decisions that define their futures—from growth strategy and advisor recruiting to mergers and acquisitions, succession planning, governance, enterprise risk, and crisis management—helping clients navigate the execution of their most consequential strategic initiatives.
Brian founded MarketCounsel and The Hamburger Law Firm to serve entrepreneurial firms through a highly coordinated combination of strategic counsel, legal guidance, and business advisory services. Today, he works at the intersection of business strategy, law, regulation, and innovation, advising wealth management firms, technology companies, strategic investors, and the innovators serving the profession as they navigate complexity, seize opportunity, bring innovative ideas to market, and scale them successfully.
Widely regarded as one of the architects of the modern independent advice movement, Brian has advised thousands of advisory firms throughout their lifecycles—from launch and growth to advisor recruiting, innovative business models, mergers and acquisitions, succession planning, and many of the industry’s most significant advisor transitions, business sales, and founder exits. His work has helped shape many of the legal, strategic, and operational frameworks that define today’s RIA profession.
Brian’s leadership and the organizations he founded have been recognized through numerous industry awards honoring innovation, leadership, legal excellence, and strategic contributions to the wealth management profession.
A sought-after keynote speaker, moderator, featured guest, and industry commentator, Brian has appeared at leading industry conferences throughout North America. He founded and hosted the award-winning MarketCounsel Summit for 16 years, an invitation-only gathering widely recognized as one of the profession’s premier forums for candid dialogue among industry leaders.
Brian is regularly quoted by leading business and financial media, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Barron’s, Bloomberg, Reuters, and Dow Jones, as well as virtually every major wealth management publication.
Beyond his professional practice, Brian is committed to strengthening the future of the profession through board service, philanthropy, and industry leadership. He serves on the boards of the Invest in Others Charitable Foundation and the FinServ Foundation and chairs the MarketCounsel Foundation.
Daniel Bernstein is responsible for thought leadership, content development, and management of a team of regulatory professionals. He is Chief Regulatory Counsel at MarketCounsel Consulting, the leading business and regulatory compliance consultancy to the country’s preeminent independent investment advisors. He is also an attorney with the Hamburger Law Firm, a boutique law firm with its practice in virtually all areas related to the wealth management industry, entrepreneurial and employment matters.
Dan has significant experience in providing a broad range of legal services to individuals, startup and emerging companies, financial technology firms, enterprises and institutions in the securities industry. Dan first began working with Brian Hamburger more than 25 years ago and joined the firm in 2003. Dan is often referred to as a leading authority in regulatory compliance for registered investment advisors.
Dan is admitted to the bars of New Jersey and New York, as well as the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. He formerly held the FINRA General Securities Representative Exam (Series 7), NASAA Uniform Investment Advisor Law Exam (Series 65) and held New Jersey Property and Casualty and Health Insurance Producer licenses. He earned his undergraduate degree in finance from the University of Connecticut. He went on to earn his Juris Doctor from the Rutgers School of Law where he was Chairman of the Moot Court Board.