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Team

Alister

Bayston

Principal Lawyer - Corporate & Commercial
Alister Bayston

Everyone knows you can’t solve a problem until you’ve identified it. Alister has been checking blind spots for 30 years, so he knows how to recognise them nice and early, before they cause problems.

Alister understands Australian businesses. He’s been advising them since 1994 – big and small, in-house and in private practice, services, and manufacturing.

Nothing surprises him. When a client calls to bounce an idea around, it is those years of experience that gives him his killer instinct for commercial risk. That and the fact that he’s worked with clients throughout their business journey. He knows where you’ve been and where you’re going.

He loves seeing businesses thrive and overcome distractions from their core purposes, and clients love the care and attention he brings to every piece of work with his unflappable personality in fluid situations.

Background

Alister has worked as a lawyer in-house and privately for years, before co-founding Bayston Group Business Law in 2007; a commercial law firm with a focus on legal technologies and efficiencies, which merged with FCW Lawyers in 2022.

Working in insurance litigation and for Munich Re (the world’s largest reinsurer), he learned how risk works. Then, as a lawyer for the entrepreneurial upstart Smorgon Steel (subsequently Onsteel and GFG Alliance), he learned how to deliver risk-weighted, workable, and effective legal services. He honed the delivery of those services as a professional services business owner in Bayston Group.

Experience
  • Buying and selling businesses from the hundreds of thousands of dollars to the tens of millions.
  • Advising investors and targets with an eye on growth and delivering on the promise.
  • Preparing businesses for sale, succession, or investment.
  • Navigating tricky disputes with a cautionary approach to litigation.
  • Documenting business relationships to align expectations and avoid disputes including tenders, joint ventures and services.
  • Negotiating and drafting construction materials contracts for major projects.
Qualifications
  • Law, Bond University
  • Arts (Philosophy), Monash University
  • Certificate of Insurance & Risk Management, University of Technology Sydney

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