A new firm opened its doors Tuesday, hoping to attract breakaway advisors with multimillion-dollar books of business. HighTower Advisors, a registered independent advisory firm and an independent broker-dealer, has already signed on a "handful" of high producing teams from some of the wirehouse firms with more in the pipeline, according to Chief Executive Officer Elliott Weissbluth.

Due to the recent fallout on Wall Street, many advisors at the large brokerage firms are seeking an alternative to the wirehouse platform. And in an effort to attract the most high producing teams of those advisors, HighTower is offering brokers a piece of equity in the firm—25% of which it is setting aside for them. "We wanted the advisors to evolve from feeling like they were part of a large organization to feeling that they were owners of a part of this organization so they can participate directly as the company continues to grow," says Doug Brown, director and non-executive chairman of HighTower. But despite what seems to be optimal timing for the new platform, the firm has actually been in the works for nearly two years—far before today's market turmoil. "We saw the shift coming, but we did not see it coming as abruptly as it did," Weissbluth says.

Other advisor-owned independent broker-dealers do exist including Next Financial in Houston and Cambridge Investment Research in Fairfield, Iowa. HighTower will be the first national, advisor-owned independent b-d, Weissbluth says, though Cambridge is also on the national front. The company is headquartered in Chicago with corporate centers in New York and the Bay Area.

The firm has reportedly already signed on several high net worth teams and has many more in the pipeline, according to Weissbluth. Several teams have already opened the doors to their offices, while more remain in transition. Some industry honchos—including former Morgan Stanley CEO Phillip J. Purcell and former CEO of Charles Schwab Corp. David S. Pottruck—are reportedly backing the firm, though the amount of their financial support has not been disclosed.

But just as HighTower gets started, it is already facing adversity. On Oct. 30, Weissbluth's former company, U.S. Fiduciary, filed a lawsuit against Weissbluth, who left his role as president of the firm in 2007; HighTower employee Steve Billimack, who left the firm in October of 2008; and HighTower itself. The lawsuit, filed in the Texas Southern District Court, cites "Contract - Recovery of Overpayment and Enforcement of Judgment," saying that Weissbluth and Billimack "tortiously interfered" with business at U.S. Fiduciary, a broker-dealer based in Houston. The firm even went as far as to put out a 10-day restraining order against the defendants, which has since expired. The suit is still pending.