Eight statements. For each one, decide whether you could say it to a client
without crossing from education into advice. Most professionals miss at least two — and the two
they miss are usually the same two.
0/8Statements sorted correctly
Where you landed
Statement
The line
The referral red flags
Any one of these means the conversation has left education, whatever words you use to
describe it. In order of how often they get missed:
"What should I do?" — the moment the question is about their
situation rather than the rules, the answer is advice regardless of how you phrase it.
Anything touching key material. Where a seed phrase lives, who holds
it, how it's split, how it's backed up. Not a topic to be helpful about.
An implementation ask. "Can you help me set it up?" Setting it up is
the thing that isn't education.
A live, urgent situation. Loss, a death in the family, a device gone,
an access problem happening now. Urgency is the strongest referral signal there is.
A specific dollar amount attached to a specific action. The number
turns a general question into a personal recommendation.
Anything that would be wrong in a different state or country.
Jurisdiction-specific claims need current local sources or they don't get made.
The question this raises
Knowing the line and having a
process that holds it at scale are different problems. The second one is where
professionals actually get caught:
A written scope statement your clients see before the conversation, not after
Standard language for the moment you decline — that doesn't sound like a brush-off
A referral route you trust, so declining doesn't mean abandoning
Client-facing material you didn't write yourself and don't have to maintain as rules change
A record of what you said, so a disagreement later is a document rather than a memory
What this tool does not do
It is not legal or compliance advice, and it is not a substitute for
your firm's own compliance review or your regulator's guidance.
It does not cover jurisdiction-specific rules. The education/advice
line is drawn differently by different regulators.
It does not certify anything. A score is not a credential.
It does not know your registration, your licences, or your firm's policies
— all of which can make the line stricter than this tool assumes, never looser.
Where your firm's policy is stricter than this tool, your firm's
policy wins. That is true every time and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
General professional education. Not legal, compliance, tax, or investment advice.
The Sovereign Academy does not provide personalized custody, inheritance, or implementation
guidance. Client-specific implementation questions are referred to a qualified adviser.
Nothing you do here is stored or transmitted.