Ok, I apologize for the tone of my previous post, it was pretty flippant. Yes, I don't think you should even go into business without either: 1) A reasonable

Ok, I apologize for the tone of my previous post, it was pretty flippant. Yes, I don't think you should even go into business without either: 1) A reasonable expectation of getting screwed (maybe reasonable is less than 1%, maybe it's 50%) 2) Money to pay at least some legal fees In order to ensure fairness, you have to play some kind of game of attrition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_attrition_(game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_attrition_(game) against others who would seek to gain by harming you disproportionally. In the U.S., we usually play that game with lawsuits. Perhaps in Russia (I am broadly generalizing and stereotyping) you might play it with bribes and cronies. In Somalia, it might be with actual guns and attrition. You can enforce a contract against a larger company, size does not have a 1-to-1 correspondence with court case outcomes. Again, sorry for sounding like a big jerk.