Kevin K. Hull is an experienced securities lawyer who benefits HEK firm clients with his multifaceted background from multiple positions in the securities industry, regulation and law since 1988. Most recently, Mr. Hull was the chairman, president and chief executive officer of Grubb & Ellis Securities, Inc., the managing broker-dealer of the various investment programs sponsored by Grubb & Ellis Company, a position he held for nearly six years. Responsible for all aspects of the broker-dealer, including compliance, legal and arbitration defense, accounting, national accounts, marketing and sales management, Mr. Hull was successful in managing the structure and operations of the firm to be in line with current regulatory expectations while achieving sales during his tenure of approximately $3.4 billion across multiple product lines including publicly-registered non-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs), tenant-in-common interests and similar private placements.
Prior to assuming his executive role with Grubb & Ellis Securities, Mr. Hull was a senior associate at Dechert LLP, a large international law firm he joined in 2001. From 1999 to 2001, Mr. Hull was an associate attorney in the New York City office of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP, another law firm with a premier practice in financial services. Mr. Hull’s prior practice of law centered on providing service to investment advisers, broker-dealers, mutual funds and hedge funds in the areas of compliance, registration, disclosure, customer complaints and investigations, regulation and enforcement in addition to advertising and product operations and sales practices. Mr. Hull is well versed in providing support on the practical day to day business issues faced by advisers and broker-dealers in relation to their customers, registered representatives and the arbitration bar.
Mr. Hull’s career in the securities industry began in 1988 as an associate compliance examiner in the Los Angeles district office of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. or NASD (now FINRA). After leaving the NASD, he worked in a registered capacity as the chief operating officer and chief financial officer of a mid-size independent broker-dealer for six years where he supervised all aspects of the firm’s business including trading, operations, corporate and commission accounting, legal, compliance, regulatory reporting and licensing. Mr. Hull also actively participated in defending the firm against securities arbitrations and appeared as an expert on behalf of the firm. While completing the securities law concentration at Catholic Law School in Washington, D.C., Mr. Hull served in the NASD Enforcement Department and in the Division of Enforcement at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission where he assisted in preparation for litigation of insider trading and other securities fraud cases. Mr. Hull also spent his second summer in law school working in the Office of Chief Counsel in the Division of Investment Management at the SEC followed by third-year law clerk position at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering where he researched and drafted chapters for the reference treatise: Investment Advisers: Law & Compliance.
Until returning to private practice of law, Mr. Hull held numerous securities registrations including general securities principal, financial and operations principal, municipal principal and options principal. Mr. Hull is a member of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Compliance and Legal Division.
Mr. Hull is a graduate of The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law (J.D., cum laude, 1999) and California State University at Fullerton (B.A., finance, 1988). He is admitted to practice law in California, New York and Massachusetts and is admitted as an attorney and counselor of the Supreme Court of the United States.