Years in Practice: 28
Years with Current Firm: 28
Assets Under Management in 2017: $1.4 billion
Jim Berliner co-founded Westmount Asset Management in 1990, and since then has served as the firm’s President and Chief Investment Officer. Under his leadership, Westmount has become one of the largest independent wealth management firms in Southern California (currently managing approximately $3 billion), and in particular has distinguished the firm from most of its peers on the investment side.
Berliner began his career practicing law, following his graduation from Harvard Law School (where he was a senior editor of the Harvard Law Review). For most of his decade practicing law he served as a federal prosecutor in the Los Angeles office of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He left the practice of law to zealously represent his clients’ interests in another arena, that of the financial markets. Westmount was one of the earliest firms in the country to pursue the fee-only independent advisor model and has complemented clients’ traditional exposures to stocks and bonds with a meaningful allocation to a wide range of alternative asset classes and strategies.