ABOUT THE TEAM
LEADERSHIP
Brian Hamburger, JD, AIFA, 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.
Jeffrey Schweon, JD
Chief Counsel
Jeffrey (Jeff) Schweon serves as Chief Counsel for The Hamburger Law Firm, where he works alongside the firm’s practice leaders to coordinate complex client engagements involving multiple legal disciplines. He provides strategic counsel to founders, CEOs, and executive leadership teams on the legal, regulatory, operational, and business issues that shape the growth, governance, and long-term success of their businesses. Serving as the firm’s principal coordinating attorney, Jeff helps clients navigate sophisticated matters that span corporate transactions, regulatory compliance, employment, litigation, governance, and strategic business initiatives.
Jeff brings a perspective that is rare in the investment advisory profession. Before joining Hamburger Law Firm, he spent more than twenty-one years as a Partner, Chief Legal Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, and Chief Financial Officer of Williams Jones Wealth Management, a leading SEC-registered investment adviser serving ultra-high-net-worth families, business owners, and private foundations. During his tenure, Williams Jones grew into one of the country’s premier advisory firms, managing more than $13 billion in client assets while operating within the Focus Financial Partners network.
As a member of the firm’s executive leadership team, Jeff participated in virtually every aspect of the business, including strategic planning, client relationships, operations, finance, compliance, enterprise risk management, technology, cybersecurity, alternative investments, executive recruiting, acquisitions, and corporate governance. Having served simultaneously as chief legal, compliance, and financial officer, he understands the operational realities facing advisory firms from the inside—an experience that enables him to provide practical, business-oriented legal counsel grounded in executive decision-making.
Earlier in his career, Jeff spent fifteen years in private legal practice representing clients in corporate, securities, and investment management matters. He became a partner at both Salans and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, where he advised investment advisers, financial institutions, and business enterprises on sophisticated corporate and securities transactions.
Jeff is valued for his ability to synthesize legal, regulatory, operational, financial, and strategic considerations into practical business advice. Throughout his career, he has helped organizations anticipate and resolve complex issues before they develop into litigation or regulatory disputes, while coordinating outside counsel and other advisors when specialized expertise is required. He also served as a trusted sounding board to founders, CEOs, and executive leadership teams confronting sophisticated business, governance, and risk management challenges.
A recognized leader within the investment advisory profession, Jeff has served on the Board of Governors of the Investment Adviser Association, including as Chair of its Business Practices Committee, Chair of its Government Relations Committee, Chair of Advocacy Counsel, a member of its Executive Committee, and a member of its Nominating Committee. He also serves on the Board of Advisors to the Dean of The George Washington University Law School.
Jeff earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting, magna cum laude, from Temple University and his Juris Doctor, with Honors, from The George Washington University Law School.
Daniel (Dan) Bernstein is Chief Regulatory Counsel at MarketCounsel Consulting, where he leads the firm’s regulatory consulting practice, oversees thought leadership and content development, and manages a team of regulatory professionals serving many of the country’s leading independent investment advisers. He is also an attorney with The Hamburger Law Firm, where he advises clients on a wide range of securities regulatory, compliance, and business matters affecting registered investment advisers and other participants across the wealth management industry.
For more than two decades, Dan has been one of the profession’s most respected regulatory attorneys, advising firms ranging from emerging RIAs and fintech companies to some of the industry’s largest and most sophisticated advisory businesses. He is widely recognized for his deep knowledge of investment adviser regulation, his practical approach to solving complex compliance challenges, and his ability to translate evolving regulatory requirements into effective business practices.
Dan has worked alongside Brian Hamburger for more than 25 years and joined the firm in its early years. Throughout his career, he has played a central role in helping advisory firms navigate regulatory examinations, registration and compliance matters, business transitions, and strategic growth initiatives. His insights regularly inform the firm’s research, educational programming, and guidance on regulatory developments affecting the independent wealth management profession.
Dan is admitted to practice law in New Jersey and New York, as well as before the US District Court for the District of New Jersey. Earlier in his career, he held the FINRA Series 7 and NASAA Series 65 licenses, along with New Jersey Property & Casualty and Health Insurance Producer licenses. He earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Connecticut and his Juris Doctor from Rutgers School of Law, where he served as Chairman of the Moot Court Board.