The question advisors actually type is some version of how to leave without losing the practice they spent years building. Underneath it sit four worries: which rules apply, what does my paperwork say, whom can I contact afterward, and where would I even go. Each has a knowable answer. Advisors leave Edward Jones and rebuild their practices every year — preparation decides how cleanly it goes.
Four preparations, worked in order.
Four things decide how the exit goes: the Protocol question, your agreement, the client-contact rules, and your destination. Work them in that sequence, because each depends on the one before it. None of these is a mystery — worked in order, the move stops being a leap in the dark and becomes a checklist you can prepare against, with help you line up in advance.
The Protocol question is answered by checking, not assuming.
The Broker Protocol, created in 2004 by Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch, and UBS, is voluntary. Where it applies, it permits a departing advisor to take five pieces of client information for the clients they personally serviced: name, address, phone number, email address, and account title. Nothing else leaves with you. To be protected, you resign in writing to local branch management and leave a copy of the information being taken — and that branch copy includes the account numbers, while yours does not.
Membership shifts continually, so the first concrete step is pulling the current list and checking both firms by name — never taking it from a forum thread or a colleague's memory.
More than two thousand firms were on the administrator's October 2025 list, but Morgan Stanley and UBS withdrew in late 2017, and Citigroup's Smith Barney followed in early 2018. If either firm is off the list, you're planning a non-Protocol exit, and your agreement alone governs — a more conservative, attorney-driven preparation.
Your own paperwork controls more than any framework.
Advisors search for a "non-compete" as if a single standard answer exists. It doesn't. Restrictive covenants vary by contract, by when you signed, and by state law. The provisions that decide your options are the ones in the document with your signature: non-solicitation language, confidentiality terms, how client information is defined, and the treatment of any transition assistance. Two advisors at the same firm can be working under different paperwork, which is why secondhand accounts tell you little about yours.
What counts as solicitation, and what leaving costs.
The line between soliciting a former client and a client independently finding you is drawn by your agreement and your state, and it deserves a specific answer before you give notice. Cost lives in your paperwork too, in three places worth pulling.
- Deferred compensation, where unvested balances are typically forfeited at resignation.
- Transition money you took on the way in — commonly a forgivable note whose unforgiven balance comes due when you leave.
- The transition itself: disrupted revenue while accounts transfer, plus setup costs if you're building.
The destination shapes the whole build.
The landing spot decides the support you have on day one, how accounts transfer, and how fast you're operational. Another broker-dealer usually means a practiced playbook run with you. An independent platform trades some support for more ownership. Your own RIA is the most work and the most control, with regulatory registration on the critical path. Do the research before you resign, and be careful where — forum threads tell you how a platform feels, but anonymous posters haven't read your agreement. Use the forums for texture; use counsel for conclusions. Retention is never certain, and no one honest will promise it.