Private Client · Family Office
The Trust Surface Review
A family's exposure is rarely measured in firewalls. It is measured in the people who never need to ask permission.
A discreet, written assessment of who holds access to your household, your entities and your money: what that access can reach, and what the evidence supports on a given date.
A household runs on permission already given.
The assistant who books the travel. The bookkeeper with the portal. The property manager, the pilot, the adviser of thirty years. Each was granted access precisely because asking every time would be intolerable.
That is not a flaw in the arrangement. It is the arrangement.
It is also why the perimeter is not where most families assume it is. Wires, entities, trust documents, health records, travel patterns and the names of children do not sit behind one door. They sit behind a dozen delegations, most undocumented, several inherited from a staffing arrangement that ended years ago.
A single compromised mailbox, a shared credential, or a forwarding rule quietly added in a settings menu can render every other precaution decorative. Not because anyone was careless. Because the access was legitimate when it was granted, and nobody revisited it.
You have not mapped your risk until you have mapped your trust.
Not a penetration test. Not a lecture about passwords.
It is an independent, outside-the-reporting-line examination of delegated authority across a family's affairs, conducted quietly and documented properly, so that the principal, and only the people the principal chooses, can see the whole picture in one place for the first time.
You receive a written baseline.
What is delegated. What is exposed. What the evidence supports as of a specific date. Held closely, shared with no one who does not need it, and durable enough to hand to counsel or an incoming administrator.
What the review covers.
Delegated access mapping
Who holds authority, and over what. Household staff, office staff, advisers, vendors and family members. Standing access versus one-time access. And the exceptions: the arrangement made once, in a hurry, that was never withdrawn.
Shared inboxes and credentials
Where correspondence, approvals and identity documents actually live. Which mailboxes more than one person can open. Which credentials have outlived the person who set them up.
Wire and payment verification
How money moves, who can instruct it, and whether every instruction is confirmed out of band, on a number known in advance rather than one supplied in the request itself.
Vendor and adviser standing access
Which outside firms retain live access to systems, records or premises. What was agreed, what was assumed, and what is still switched on.
Rule, login and configuration changes
Forwarding rules, delegate permissions, recovery contacts and vendor detail changes, treated as questions to be answered rather than notifications to be dismissed.
Incident evidence triage
If something has already happened, what to preserve and in what order, before anyone is confronted and before anything is deleted or forwarded.
Technical surveillance countermeasures, where indicated
Physical and RF assessment of a residence, office, vehicle or conference space when the facts of a matter warrant it, rather than as a default add-on.
How the engagement runs.
One
Consultation
A confidential conversation with the principal, or with counsel or the family-office executive at the principal's direction. No documents required to begin.
Two
Scope
We agree in writing what is in scope, who is aware, and how findings will be reported. Reporting lines are settled before any fieldwork begins.
Three
Fieldwork
Conducted at the pace the principal sets, arranged around the family's calendar rather than ours.
Four
The written baseline
Delivered and walked through in person or by secure means, so the document is understood rather than merely received.
Five
Review
Delegations change. People leave, entities are added, a new adviser is brought in. We agree at the outset when it makes sense to revisit the baseline, and that revisit is scoped like any other engagement.
How we work.
Discretion is the deliverable
Nothing is announced. Nothing is dramatised. Staff are not put on notice unless the facts require it and the principal directs it.
Outside the reporting line
Where the concern touches someone who controls the records, the engagement is structured so that person does not control the investigation.
Coordinated with counsel
We work alongside your attorneys and, where privilege matters, at their direction.
Authorized work only
Everything is conducted lawfully and with proper authority. We will tell you plainly what we cannot do.
No inspection promises to find everything
What a review can honestly offer is a clear, defensible picture of your environment on a given date, in writing. That is what we deliver.
Who this is for.
- Principals and their spouses
- Single-family and multi-family offices
- Family-office executives, CFOs and chiefs of staff
- Private bankers and wealth advisers acting for a client
- Trust and estate counsel, and family-law counsel, engaging on a client's behalf
- Executives and board members with household exposure
Served from Pittsburgh. Regular work throughout Western Pennsylvania: Sewickley, Fox Chapel, Cranberry, Butler and Wexford. Nationally by arrangement.
Questions we are asked.
- Will our staff know?
- Not unless you decide they should. Scope, awareness and reporting lines are agreed with you before anything begins.
- We have an IT firm already. Is this the same thing?
- No. An IT firm manages controls. This work examines authority: who can act, on whose behalf, and over what. It produces evidence rather than configuration.
- Something may have already happened. Should we wait?
- No. Preserve, do not delete or forward, and call before anyone is confronted. The first hour matters more than the first week.
- Do you need access to our accounts?
- That is decided with you, in writing, before any fieldwork begins: what is needed, for how long, and who grants it. Nothing is standing, and nothing begins before you have agreed to it. If you would prefer we hold no credentials at all, say so at the consultation and the engagement is scoped that way.
- What does it cost?
- Engagements are scoped after the consultation and quoted in writing. Cost follows the scope: how many households and entities are involved, what is already documented, and whether the matter is live. You will have a figure in writing before anything begins.
At your service
The house is in order when you can prove it.
Empire Investigation conducts authorized privacy, insider-risk and technical-security work for families, principals and single-family offices. On your terms, on your calendar, in writing.
Answered live, at any hour. You will speak with an investigator, not a call centre.
Or write, and we will call you back
Serving private clients and their counsel since 1982. Licensed, bonded and insured.
