About

Thirty-five years of financial services law, built into a practice you can access directly.

Hastings Legal delivers institutional-grade expertise directly to clients, without the layers, delays or impersonality of a large firm.

Founding Principal

Jim Bulling

Jim Bulling is the founder of Hastings Legal and has spent more than 35 years advising participants across the financial services sector, most recently as a senior partner within one of the world's leading global law firms.

His practice has spanned the full breadth of financial services law, with a particular depth in wealth management, financial advice regulation, and the legal frameworks that govern how Australian advice businesses operate and grow.

Jim established Hastings Legal to bring that depth of experience directly to the firms that need it most, without the overhead, hierarchy or impersonality of the institutional model.

Clients deal directly with Jim. Not a team of juniors. The person who takes the brief is the person who delivers the advice.

Jim Bulling, Founding Principal, Hastings Legal

Experience

35 years in financial services law

Jim's practice spans the full spectrum of financial services law. Click any area to expand the detail.

Wealth management

Advice to wealth management operators on structure, governance and regulatory obligations.

Jim has spent the majority of his career advising wealth management businesses of all scales, from boutique operators to large multi-affiliate groups. His advice covers the full lifecycle: establishment, licensing, structural change, growth and succession. He understands the operational realities of running a wealth management business and delivers advice that is calibrated to commercial objectives, not legal formalism.

Financial advice regulation

Deep expertise in the regulatory framework governing financial advice and AFSL holders.

Jim has advised AFSL holders and financial advice businesses on the full scope of their regulatory obligations, ASIC engagement, licensing conditions, breach reporting, ongoing compliance frameworks and the evolving requirements of the advice regulatory regime. He has advised through multiple rounds of major regulatory reform, including the Future of Financial Advice reforms and the ongoing implementation of the Quality of Advice Review.

Investment products

Legal support for product issuers and the distribution frameworks that connect them to advice.

Jim has advised extensively on managed investment schemes, superannuation products, insurance products and other financial products distributed through the advice sector. His experience includes product design, disclosure obligations, distribution agreements and the regulatory frameworks that govern the relationship between product issuers and the advisers who recommend their products.

ASIC engagement

Experienced in managing regulatory interactions, inquiries and enforcement proceedings.

Jim has represented clients in a wide range of ASIC interactions, from routine licensing matters to formal investigations and enforcement proceedings. His approach is practical and commercially informed: he helps clients understand what ASIC is actually concerned about, what the realistic outcomes are, and how to respond in a way that protects the business's interests. He understands how the regulator thinks and what effective engagement looks like.

Governance & compliance

Frameworks that work in practice, not just on paper.

Good governance and effective compliance are not the same thing, and Jim approaches them distinctly. His governance advice focuses on the structures and processes that enable sound decision-making and clear accountability. His compliance advice is operationally grounded, focused on frameworks that businesses can actually implement and maintain, rather than documents produced to satisfy an audit.

Financial services transactions

M&A, practice acquisitions and structural transactions in the advice sector.

Jim has acted on a significant number of transactions in the financial advice and wealth management sector, acquisitions of advice practices, dealer group M&A, platform transactions and joint venture arrangements. His experience covers both buy-side and sell-side, with particular expertise in the legal due diligence issues that are specific to financial advice businesses: regulatory status, client agreements, AFCA exposure and the transferability of commercial relationships.

Licensing & regulatory frameworks

AFSL applications, variations, conditions and the structures that support them.

Jim has advised on AFSL applications, variations and conditions across a wide range of business models. He understands the practical requirements of ASIC's licensing process and the structural considerations that shape how a licence should be configured. His advice on licensing is always connected to the business model it supports, the goal is a licence that fits how the business actually operates, not a generic authorisation that creates unnecessary constraints.

Practice structures & agreements

The legal frameworks that govern how advice businesses are structured and operated.

The legal structure of a financial advice practice, the entity arrangements, the agreement frameworks, the authorised representative relationships, has significant commercial and regulatory implications. Jim advises on practice structures from establishment through to significant structural change, including the conversion of authorised representative models to self-licensing, practice consolidations and the restructuring of dealer group arrangements.

Regulatory disputes

Representation and advice in AFCA, regulatory and enforcement matters.

Jim has acted for financial advice and wealth management businesses in AFCA complaints, regulatory investigations, professional disciplinary proceedings and civil disputes. His approach to disputes is pragmatic: he focuses on understanding what is actually at stake, assessing the realistic range of outcomes, and moving efficiently toward resolution. He does not manufacture complexity in disputes, he looks for the most direct path to the best achievable outcome.

Philosophy

Clear advice. Commercial thinking. Direct accountability.

Hastings Legal was established around a simple principle: clients should be able to access highly experienced legal counsel directly, in language they understand and within timeframes that matter to their business.

The firm deliberately avoids unnecessary legal complexity, institutional hierarchy and over-engineered advice. Instead, the focus is on practical outcomes, commercial clarity and trusted long-term relationships.

“

I spent decades inside a global firm watching advice get filtered through layers before it reached the client. I wanted to build something different, where the experience is undiluted and the relationship is direct.

”

Jim Bulling, Founding Principal

What we stand for

The foundations of how we work

Expertise without arrogance

Over three decades of specialist experience, delivered without the institutional ego. We know this space thoroughly and speak about it plainly.

Commercial clarity

We translate complex regulatory and legal positions into language that serves our clients' business objectives, not documents designed to protect the adviser.

Directness and accountability

Clients deal with Jim. Not a team of juniors. The person who takes the brief is the person who delivers the advice.

Active intelligence

The wealth management regulatory environment is fast-moving. We stay ahead of it and publish what we know.

Independence

Hastings Legal is an independent entity. The firm stands on its own foundations: commercially, professionally and in reputation.

Personal accountability

We commit to timeframes that matter to your business. Advice is delivered when you need it, in language you can act on.

Our community

Who we work with

Advice Firms & Wealth Management Businesses

Our primary focus is the Australian advice community: licensed financial advice firms, AFSLs, principals, licensees and wealth management operators navigating an increasingly demanding regulatory environment.

Whether you are establishing a structure, managing a regulatory matter, evolving your business model or dealing with a dispute, Hastings Legal brings the depth of experience that the complexity requires.

The Legal Community

Hastings Legal works alongside lawyers acting for counterparties in financial services transactions, disputes and regulatory matters, both collaboratively and across the table. We bring specialist depth to those engagements.

We are also actively building our practice and welcome conversations with specialist lawyers interested in the wealth management sector. Both sides of our capacity, demand and supply, are open.

Work directly with Hastings Legal

For enquiries, introductions or confidential discussions, contact us directly.

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