- “All too often today, I observe professionals who offer advice to their clients based, not on what their clients need for orderly long-term change to meet new conditions, but, rather, on a product which the professional has developed and wants to sell. This conduct is the antithesis of the behavior of a true personne de confiance. Families are in the business of overcoming the universal cultural proverb, shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. Given current demographics it will take on hundred fifty years for three generations of a family to be born and die. Thus, it will be one hundred and fifty years from now before anyone can know whether the family has overcome the first hurdle to its perpetual, never-ending war against the proverb. A professional who wishes to be personne de confiance rather than a salesperson has to face this truth.” A Reflection on the Nature and Practice of the Role of the Personne de Confiance in a System of Family Governance; Historically and Today. By James E. Hughes, Jr., Esq.