[ritchiea]

> a contract is only good if the dollar amount is enough to get a lawyer involved as far as filing and pursuing any legal action

I disagree, contracts are much better than an email trail for keeping both parties on the same page. Email trails are murky and take effort to navigate. Emails sometimes lack a complete context. A contract is a canonical text for your work arrangement. Starting your work with a contract is not just good practice to CYA so you get paid, it's a good way to start conversations with your client to make sure you both get what you're looking for and don't want to kill each other (or if you do want to kill the other person you at least have to blame yourself first for agreeing to such foolish terms).