The fiduciary debate has developed pretty much as Harold Evensky predicted.

Several years ago, Evensky, an industry luminary and chairman of Evensky & Katz/Foldes Financial, figured that efforts to create a uniform fiduciary standard for all advisors would get bogged down in politics, and investors would be left with the confusing system of two separate standards—fiduciary for RIAs and suitability for brokers.

So Evensky spearheaded the development of a simple, one-page fiduciary oath for use by advisors with their clients (and for use by investors to smoke out advisors operating under a sales standard). Click here to tell us what you think of the oath.

The Committee for the Fiduciary Standard, a group Evensky co-founded in 2009, promotes the oath.

Although the committee hasn’t tracked how many advisors use the oath, committee members have been active in promoting it.

The oath intentionally does not contain the word “fiduciary” or define the term. Instead, it sums up the key elements of a fiduciary duty—put the client’s best interests first, act with prudence, do not mislead clients and avoid conflicts or manage them in the client’s favor.

It’s a “mom-and-pop oath that no one could find objectionable,” Evensky says.

And it was developed with “the expectation that investors were not likely to see ultimate protection by the regulators or Congress; this puts an element of control in their hands,” Evensky adds.

“People can sign [the oath] and retain it in their files, so they have some legal backing regardless” of what regulations their advisors may be under, adds Sheryl Garrett, founder of the Garrett Planning Network, and a member of the fiduciary standard committee.

While the Department of Labor is on track to roll out its fiduciary rule next year, the regulation will cover only IRAs and retirement plans and provide a number of exemptions for commission-based brokers.

Meanwhile, after ducking rulemaking for years, the SEC now indicates it will propose its own fiduciary rule late next year. But what the SEC may do, if anything, is unknown.

“I’m a skeptic” of SEC action, Evensky says.

The spirited fiduciary debate enveloping the industry has not helped educate consumers about the different standards of care under which financial advisors operate.

The fiduciary oath was intended to correct that, Evensky says. “People are shocked to find that’s not the standard universally,” he says.

“I think the oath is brilliant in its simplicity,” said Skip Schweiss, managing director of advisor advocacy at TD Ameritrade Institutional. “If you put this oath in front of [clients], it’s not so hard to understand.”

But is this all important to clients?

Oath or no oath, fiduciary expert Don Trone says clients don’t really care.

“All the legitimate surveys … have demonstrated that the public cannot discern the difference between a suitability or fiduciary standard, nor do they care,” said Trone, CEO of 3Ethos, a fiduciary training firm.

What clients want is to be able to trust the person they work with, Trone says.

“So if an advisor feels compelled to provide an oath or pledge, they have not done an adequate job of demonstrating to the client or prospect that they’re worthy of the clients’ trust,” he says.

Evensky doesn’t disagree with that.

“Trust is another whole massive subject,” he says. “The goal of the oath was to define the relationship between advisor and client. … Most clients assume whomever they’re dealing with is living up to [a fiduciary duty]. It will help distinguish between those who are and are not.”

That distinction may be harder to make after the DOL rule goes into effect, warns Knut Rostad, a co-founder of the committee as well as its subsequent spin-off, the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard.

Under the DOL rule, “more and more brokers will be able to claim fiduciary adherence, then get around it [with] fine print” in customer agreements, Rostad says.

The institute, which was established to help advisors meet fiduciary standards, has its own set of  principles (similar to the oath) and next year plans to reach out directly to investors about what they should expect from advisors.

In September, the Institute also finalized a 12-item list of best practices that advisors can follow—practices that investors can have verified, Rostad says.

“Verifying [compliance] in some form is simply required in this day and age because of skepticism and distrust,” he says.

For example, advisors should be able to show clients a process for managing conflicts and choosing investments, they should have a commitment to professional education, and ensure they follow industry best practices.

But even a verification system only goes so far, says Philip Chao, founder of Chao & Company Ltd., a retirement plan specialist, and a board member of the Institute.

“How do I [as a client] know that you have met that oath you made to me?” Chao asks. After all, advisors may succumb to a “self-reporting bias” when they hold themselves accountable to clients, he says.

“I just don’t think there’s an easy solution,” he says.

But to some observers, Evensky’s oath is the simplest way to communicate the basic fiduciary standard to clients.

“Perhaps over time it will raise the awareness” of the public, Evensky says.