[bigiain]

I'm not so sure about the trademark thing. I've just started that process with my partners non-tech new business. Here (in Australia) you can do a bunch of searches online, and enter a trademark application on a government website for $120, and if it;s approved you pay $300 for 10 years trademark protection. Once you've got all your domain name / twitter handle / social media accounts and pages lined up, a few hundred bucks for trademark protection in your area of business seems like money well spent to me, even if all it does is discourage someone from making a claim they've got more rights to a domain name or social media account name than you.

Of course that adice mostly applies to trademarking names which clearly have no existing claimants (or at least none in your area of business) which would complicate things enough to require law firm time to resolve...

[jacques_chester]

Yep, trademarks are fairly self-service in Australia. Generally you can leave the lawyer out of it unless and until a dispute arises.

That being said, some lawyers only charge a pretty minimal amount over and above the underlying IP Australia fee and it can nice to delegate the paperwork to them.

It really depends on what your time is worth.