Ep 441: What It Really Takes To Implement And Scale Compliance As An Independent RIA Grows with Leila Shaver
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2025
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As advisory firms grow, so does the complexity of compliance—and Leila Shaver has built a business dedicated to helping them scale without costly missteps. She provides strategic guidance that keeps firms aligned with regulatory expectations as their teams, client bases, and responsibilities expand.
Leila is the founder of My RIA Lawyer, a Georgia-based legal and compliance firm serving RIAs, broker-dealers, and other financial services companies. In this episode, she shares insights into when firms typically seek outsourced compliance support, the key differences between broker-dealer oversight and RIA regulation, and why firms might consider including their compliance professionals in business strategy business strategy decisions. You'll also hear about the latest developments in advisor-facing compliance technology and how Leila's own entrepreneurial journey mirrors that of the clients she serves.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/441
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with |
| 0:07.1 | financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading |
| 0:12.4 | financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success |
| 0:17.4 | and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next |
| 0:22.2 | level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. |
| 0:29.0 | Welcome to the 441st episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's |
| 0:34.7 | podcast is Layla Shaver. Layla is the founder of my RIA lawyer, a compliance and legal services firm based in Alpharetta, Georgia that serves RIA's, broker-dealer's and other financial services companies. |
| 0:46.5 | What's unique about Layla, though, is how she helps firms navigate the increasing compliance burdens that can arise as they grow in size and complexity to ensure |
| 0:54.9 | they remain in line with the requirements of their relevant regulators. |
| 0:58.7 | In this episode, then, we talk in depth about how Layla has found that the time firms need |
| 1:03.3 | to spend on compliance can vary based on their size, with solo advisors, possibly only needing |
| 1:08.4 | to spend a couple of hours per month in increasing as they add more employees, how Layla finds that firms tend to start looking for outsourced compliance |
| 1:15.4 | solutions once they reach approximately $500 million in AUM based on the growing complexity of |
| 1:20.8 | the firm and the increased time needed to devote to supervision and other compliance tasks, |
| 1:25.3 | and why Layla thinks that it's not unreasonable for larger firms |
| 1:28.6 | to spend 5 to 10% of their annual revenue on compliance, whether by hiring a sufficient |
| 1:33.3 | number of internal compliance professionals and or engaging an outsourced solution that can |
| 1:37.4 | fully understand the firm's operations. |
| 1:39.6 | We also talk about how Layla finds that while there are similarities between broker-dealer |
| 1:43.4 | and RIA compliance, for example, in terms of practical testing requirements, many advisors who |
| 1:48.1 | transition to the RIA model find that compliance is often less burdensome, how Lela sees broker-dealer |
| 1:52.8 | compliance under FINRA as more rules-based and prescriptive, while RIA compliance under the |
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