Fifty five planners chose Fidelity to be their custodian in the first six months of 2008 as they broke away from their wirehouse roots to set up an independent registered independent advisory (RIA) firm. This brought in more than $7 billion in client assets under management so far this year—more than double the breakaway new client assets Fidelity acquired in all of 2007.

As the fallout on Wall Street remains splashed across headlines, calls from clients concerned about their firm affiliation are causing many wirehouse brokers to finally make the jump toward independence. Just last week, Fidelity Executive Vice President Scott Dell'Orfano was working with 10 more wirehouse brokers with nearly $8.5 billion in assets under management about going independent.

"They've been thinking about going independent for a number of years and there are a number of reasons why they didn't have the motivation before," Dell'Orfano says. "Now they have that motivation and their clients are anxious and want to know what they need to do now. All of a sudden, the brand of what an independent RIA firm does and the quality of those firms are starting to take hold, when 24 months ago there were still unknowns."