[michael_dorfman]

How bad? Bad. Very bad. Bad, bad, bad. Did I mention "bad"?

I'm not allowed to talk (much) about it, but the short version is: been there, done that, to the tune of several million bucks that are currently missing from my pocket.

So, the answers to your questions (in order):

1) Worse than you can imagine.

2) Some do, but not all. Which means, to be safe, you have to pretend no one does.

3) Yes, undoubtedly. There's only two ways to find out: a) lawyer up, or b) roll the dice, and pay the price. I'd strongly recommend the former.

4) Not much. You might get lucky and draft an agreement that is as good as a lawyer would write. You might also get hit by a meteor made out of twenty-dollar-bills. I wouldn't count on either.

5) Diddley-squat, if your goal is to protect yourself.

To sum up: pay the damn lawyer. View the expense as something like health insurance-- it's a pain in the ass to pay for it when you don't need it, but it's a zillion times worse to really need it and not have paid for it.

[log0]

It seems it's an overall very negative position to be in, aggregrating all the replies.

thanks. I think I need to re-consider again very very seriously.