Absolutely awful advice. I am going to drop Mike Monteiro on this from a great height: http://vimeo.com/22053820 http://vimeo.com/22053820 The crater will be

Absolutely awful advice. I am going to drop Mike Monteiro on this from a great height: http://vimeo.com/22053820 http://vimeo.com/22053820 The crater will be visible from space. It is true, a proper contract from a lawyer is expensive. But you will be surprised how often it comes in handy. In my experience so far there are only two kinds of contractor: the ones that can tell a story about struggling to get paid, and the ones that have not been paid yet. One of my favorite contract clauses is the one about how, if you have to sue the client for payment, they'll cover your legal costs. Try getting that kind of leverage without a contract, via firm handshakes or obsequious bowing and scraping or whatever.