I think the model you’re describing makes a lot of sense, conceptually. Smart companies use their highest paid executives to work on only the most important projects and pass off to other tasks to lower level staff. In addition, many companies create specialists so that individuals can create a deep, fundamental expertise which is hard to be replicated at other companies.

To follow the legal analogy further, a client may work with a team of senior experts – one who specializes in real estate investment, one who specailizes in luxury real estate and maybe even one who specializes in the needs of real estate for seniors looking to protect their assets and limit tax liabilities for their families.

I have thought about this model many times. It is similar to the organizational structure of real estate in the U.K. The piece of the model I struggle with in this market is cash flow. How can brokerages afford to pay for more staff when their transaction volume and cash flow is significantly reduced. Maybe a firm could try this idea with a subset of their firm to see if the model actually creates increased profitability over time.