Fiduciary Asset Management in 2025: Evolving Duties, Digital Assets, and Litigation Risks

Joseph Testa | Testa Financial Management

Joseph Testa has worked in the investment field for more than thirty years. Prior to starting his own company, he served as the Chief Investment Officer of the Trust Division of the private Beach Bank of Vero Beach, FL. He also held the positions of Vice President for Northern Trust Bank and Barnett Bank Trust Company and as Investment Officer for Midlantic Bank & Trust Co./Fl. Earlier in his career he worked for Merrill Lynch and Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Mr. Testa is also involved in a range of entrepreneurial ventures, often through his business consulting firm, Rising Tide Capital LLC. He was the Founding Director of Marquis Bank in Miami, Florida, where he served as Chair of the Investment, Compliance, and Audit Committees. He is also the Co-Founder of Yotta280 (formerly 4QuartersIT.com) and has served as Chief Financial Officer of Clever Imports/Chocovine. Mr. Testa sat on the Board of Directors of The Singing Machine Company, which was formerly listed on the American Stock Exchange, and has consulted for various for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

He studied in the Financial Planner Designation program at the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned his B.A. and was captain of the Pitt hockey team.

David Johnson | Winstead PC

Through his trial and appellate experience, David aggressively strives to obtain the absolute best results possible for his clients. David maintains active trial and appellate practice. David has consistently worked on fiduciary litigation matters as both trial and appellate counsel throughout his career. David has specialized in estate and trust disputes including will contests, mental competency issues, undue influence, trust modification/clarification, breach of fiduciary duty and related claims, and accounting.

David’s recent trial experience includes: Representing a bank in federal class action suit where trust beneficiaries challenged whether the bank was the authorized trustee of over 220 trusts; Representing a bank in state court regarding claims that it mismanaged oil and gas assets; Representing a bank who filed suit in probate court to modify three trusts to remove a charitable beneficiary that had substantially changed operations; Represented an individual executor of an estate against claims raised by a beneficiary for breach of fiduciary duty and an accounting; and Represented an individual trustee against claims raised by a beneficiary for breach of fiduciary duty, mental competence of the settlor, and undue influence.

David is the primary author of the Texas Fiduciary Litigator blog, which reports on legal cases and issues impacting the fiduciary field in Texas. David is a unique lawyer in that he has extensive trial and appellate experience, which has resulted in his achieving board certifications in civil trial law, civil appellate, and personal injury trial law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Out of approximately 84,000 licensed attorneys in Texas, David is one of less than twenty attorneys with this particular triple certification in civil appellate, civil trial and personal injury trial law. David is also a member of the Civil Trial Law Commission of the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. This commission writes and grades the exam for new applicants for civil trial law certification.

Session I – Fiduciary Standards in Flux: Case Law, Global Trends, and Risk Management for 2025 | 1:00pm – 2:40pm

• Examination of Seminole Tribe vs Wells Fargo case, implications for fiduciary standards
• Review of the history of fiduciary standards and trend developments

Break | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

• International political and macro-economic changes and effect on fiduciary standards, implications for liability
• Recommendations on how to proceed and set up for new fiduciary standards

Session II – Fiduciary Asset Management in Practice: Real-World Risks, Valuation Disputes & Litigation Traps | 2:40pm – 3:50pm

• Everyday decisions that create legal risk
• Procedural slip-ups that lead to court
• What happens when people disagree on value

Break | 3:10pm – 3:20pm

• Fixing problems without a court battle
• When someone wants the fiduciary removed
• Protecting fiduciaries with better practices