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Formerly a top M&A lawyer at Australian firm Arnold Bloch Leibler, John Fast has made sweeping changes since his arrival at BHP Billiton last year. He runs a legal team of 71 with an external spend of $40m-$50m (£22.6m-£28.3m). Because of the size of the company, which has a turnover of around $15.6bn (£8.82bn), the legal team will be handling thirty to forty transactions at any given time.
Fast has a reputation for bringing out the best in his staff. He is currently in the process of introducing a reverse secondment programme, which will see his in-house lawyers spending time in private practice firms to enhance and improve their skills. He also runs a mentoring programme and ensures that all his team have the opportunity to improve skills with ongoing external business and legal training programmes.
But it is not just staff that are important. Fast is also aware that, like in any legal practice, clients are also key. For him, the clients are the business groups within BHP. He regularly surveys them to find out how the legal team is doing and what can be improved. He has introduced time sheets into the legal department, so he can say how and where the legal team, and ultimately the company, can save time and money.
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