My approach: I take the contract to the lawyer, discuss it with them, decide what is worth negotiating on and not. I do the negotiations. The lawyer advises.

My approach: I take the contract to the lawyer, discuss it with them, decide what is worth negotiating on and not. I do the negotiations. The lawyer advises. Most contracts don't require me taking them to a lawyer. I read them 4-5 times over, annotate them with questions, talk with the client, see what we need to clarify, and go for it. Those that do involve questions I want to clarify with a lawyer before clarifying with the client (where raising a question may make me sound greedy or dramatic, etc). Most contracts are designed to cover one or both sides in the event that something goes wrong. The boilerplate can usually be quickly identified once you have some practice. The rest is going to be operational stuff and you don't want to sign the contract to find out what is in it. These sections establish expectations on what is done and how you interact. But whatever you do, don't have your lawyer do the negotiation for you. Madness lies that way. Business negotiations are not the same.