2025 Top Retirement Plan Adviser: Michael Francis

Thoughts from Michael Francis, with Francis LLC.

This year, PLANADVISER followed up with advisers on our 2025 Top Retirement Plan Advisers list to get to know them better. These are the responses from Michael Francis of Francis LLC in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

PLANADVISER: For those plan sponsors looking for a new plan adviser, describe what makes your firm stand out.

Michael Francis: People seeking professional advice expect the best information possible at a fair price. Imagine going to an accountant for tax advice and learning the accountant can manipulate his own compensation depending on what advice he gives. Alternatively, imagine going to an estate planning attorney and being told your estate plan—trusts, wills, powers of attorney, etc.—was going to cost you a percentage of your liquid net worth each year for the rest of your life. Most people would find either of these scenarios unacceptable when seeking tax or legal advice.

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Yet when people seek an investment adviser, this is typically what they’re asked to accept—an adviser with the power to inflate [his] own compensation at your expense and/or one that expects to get paid a fee in perpetuity for what was a few hours work.

Multiple studies have shown that the conflicted compensation schemes most investment advisers foist on their clients lead to overpaying for investment products and services and suboptimal performance.

At Francis, our advisers get paid like you pay your accountant or attorney, based on the time and expertise required to give you the best advice possible. We push back against the industry’s conflicted and unfair compensation schemes, and that means we provide superior advice at a meaningfully lower cost to our clients. This means better results, period.

Our firm exists for one purpose: to provide conflict-free advice to sponsors of qualified retirement plans and their employees. Because of its focus, our firm’s business model is different than any other you will consider for this assignment. Specifically, we sell no investment products; accept no remuneration of any kind from any third-party service provider (asset manager, recordkeeper, trust or custody); only charge clients based on the time and expertise required to complete the work contracted (no asset-based compensation); and are 100% employee owned.

Furthermore, to ensure our clients’ employees receive financial planning and investment advice that is solely in their best interest, we do not offer wealth management services to individuals. This ensures that our advisers are conflict-free when an employee asks them what to do with [that person’s] hard-earned savings at retirement.

It should go without saying, but because there is so much money spent on advertising to convince people otherwise, conflict-free investment advice is superior to conflicted investment advice—even when properly disclosed and rigorously supervised. Our business model delivers superior results, a fact to which our many satisfied clients will gladly attest.

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New York City Bar Committee Makes Recommendations to Strengthen Retirement Security

In a letter, the committee, comprised of legal professionals representing employee benefits stakeholders, expressed concern that legislative shifts aimed at funding tax cuts or addressing Social Security deficits might undermine the incentives driving retirement savings.

In a July 3 letter, the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation called on the Department of the Treasury, the IRS and leaders in Congress to prioritize the stability and expansion of the U.S. private retirement system in the wake of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which included little for the sector. 

The committee, comprised of legal professionals representing employee benefits stakeholders, expressed concern that legislative shifts aimed at funding tax cuts or addressing Social Security deficits might undermine the incentives driving retirement savings—a move they argue would endanger Americans’ financial futures. 

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The principal authors of the letter were attorneys Carol I. Buckmann, Kathleen A. Drapeau, Matthew L. Eilenberg, Evan Giller, John M. Harras, Barry L. Salkin and Rania V. Sedhom. 

“Retirement plan benefits should not be viewed as a means to fund tax cuts or the Social Security system,” the committee wrote. Citing data from multiple sources, including the Investment Company Institute and the Employee Benefit Research Institute, the letter warned that destabilizing tax incentives would erode retirement readiness for millions of workers. 

The committee outlined nine core policy recommendations, urging lawmakers and the administration to: 

  • Maintain stability and simplicity: Emphasize continuity in retirement tax policy to avoid burdening plan sponsors with ever-changing compliance demands; 
  • Exempt new retirement legislation from regulation freezes: Request guidance on the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 and the SECURE Act 2.0 of 2022, stressing that delays in “guidance is necessary for proper operation of plans, and failure to provide safe harbors and basic rules for administering the new provisions will deter new plan adoption and plan continuation;”
  • Keep Roth contributions optional: Oppose mandatory Rothification for high earners, arguing it imposes tax burdens without guaranteed benefits. Specifically, the letter points to the complexity created for plan sponsors in Section 603 of SECURE 2.0, which requires employees earning more than $145,000 to make catch-up contributions on a Roth basis, and urged it be reconsidered; 
  • Allow 403(b) plans to use collective investment trusts: Support the Retirement Fairness Act to enable cost-effective investment options for nonprofit and education sector employees; 
  • Promote supplemental savings options: Expand support for health savings accounts, emergency funds and nonqualified plans to bridge savings gaps; 
  • Encourage lifetime income products: Seek Department of Labor guidance to simplify the inclusion of annuities and similar tools in defined contribution plans; 
  • Expand pooled employer plans: Push for regulatory clarity to make low-cost, multiple employer plans more accessible to small businesses; 
  • Enhance financial literacy: Propose a tax credit for employers that provide robust, personalized financial education programs; and 
  • Protect existing tax benefits: Urge lawmakers not to weaken current employer-sponsored retirement plan incentives. 

The committee emphasized that retirement security has historically received bipartisan support and should remain a shared priority. The letter was addressed to leadership on the relevant committees in both chambers of Congress and relevant departments across Treasury, Labor and the IRS. 

“Highlighting the importance of saving in a 401(k) plan will lead to better long-term retirement savings and avoid plan leakage (pre-retirement withdrawals) that can result in adverse tax consequences for the employee and a higher 401(k) plan administrative fee for employers,” the letter stated. 

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