Huebner thought Berkshire was a good bargain early last year, when markets were still struggling, so he snapped it up. The problem was that the stock was not covered by UBS' equity analysts, which prompted some queries from the compliance department.

"They wanted us to justify why we were buying it," he said. "You mean investing with Warren Buffett isn't good enough?" By February, Huebner, a 36-year industry veteran, joined the growing ranks of advisers breaking away from the big brokerages when he launched Pointe Capital Management LLC in the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

Between November 2008 and last month, some 1,500 brokers fled "wirehouse" brokerages, as the big financial institutions are known, to work for boutique independent firms, according to data from industry tracker Discovery.

For now, the departures are just a blip for the four largest firms: Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, jointly owned by Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, Bank of America Corp's Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo & Co and UBS, which together manage $4.6 trillion of client assets.

Whether the breakaway movement peaked last year or will grab market share from big firms for years to come is the subject of heated debate in the wealth management industry. For their part, independents say the trend will continue as more advisers get fed up with Wall Street conflicts and the big banks' bureaucracy.

"We were finding it hard to represent our clients in a wholesome way," said Huebner, who had a series of investment ideas questioned in addition to his Berkshire purchase. "The market is about to bottom, and we saw all kinds of issues in the industry we didn't like." BROKEN BUSINESS MODEL? Traditional brokerages earn money when clients make trades - the more the better - boosting income from commissions and fees. Critics have long complained that a broker's interests, particularly the sales of in-house investment products, were not always aligned with the customer's.

Like Huebner, many advisers complain that they are hemmed in by the bureaucracy at big banks. Independents, they say, can treat clients better. Registered investment advisers are by law beholden to higher fiduciary standards, which discourages recommending risky or overpriced investments.

Advisers do not charge commissions, so they are not motivated by the need to make trades. Nor are they constantly under the gun to enlist new clients and boost a firm's assets.

"Many brokerage firms have asset-based bonuses, so you're not always focused 100 percent on clients," said David Honigstock, who bolted from Morgan Stanley in December to form Honigstock Group based in Syosset, New York.

"There is not a thing I miss" about a big firm, he added. Breaking away "was the greatest thing I ever did. I felt I could do things better and I wanted to have that autonomy." That decision is a lot easier these days, Honigstock said, as custody providers like Charles Schwab, Fidelity and Pershing help small shops offer big-firm trading, technology and products. Operating costs also are lower, which can be passed along to clients in the form of lower fees.

Legions of brokers, and the cottage industry of firms to support them, contend traditional brokers may have survived the financial crisis but that their fundamental business model is under assault. With commission rates under constant pressure, brokerages are retooling to charge fees based on total assets, and justify that partly by calling their brokers "advisers." Wall Street's big boys also have been forced to offer "open architecture," which means a client can buy investments and funds developed by other firms, potentially diluting profits.

Several forces have come together to convince growing numbers of investment advisers to conclude they could do better on their own. When the 2008 meltdown slammed bank stocks, years of deferred pay vanished - and with it, a firm's hold on brokers. At the same time, the sinking value of stock issued as bonuses weakened the golden handcuffs that kept brokers from straying.

Then there is the latest blow to Wall Street's reputation. Affiliation with big banks like Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia or Citigroup Inc - long a selling point for brokers - turned into a weakness when these firms needed taxpayer bailouts to survive.

At the same time, the financial crisis and a burst of mergers fueled a recruiting war. A record 8,667 wirehouse brokers jumped to new jobs last year, according to Discovery. A growing number of them are passing up huge signing bonuses to strike out on their own.