0/ Nothing pisses me off more than Lawyers ripping Founders off when putting investment docs together.

The worst part is most Investors aren’t helpful - 85% push the bill to Founders.

As an ex-lawyer, I saw all the inside tricks.

Here's how to reduce your legal bill by 90%:

1/ First, it’s important to understand how lawyers make $.

A legal bill has nothing to do with the end deliverable.

Wait what? That’s right. Lawyers make money via the billable hour.

Regardless of quality, you get charged based on how many hours the lawyer(s) spent with you

2/ The second cost variable is hourly rate.

Hourly Rate is a function of seniority of the lawyer you are working with.

Why is this important? Because the hourly rates go up FAST at top law firms.

Junior Associates = ~$400/hr
Senior Associates = ~$1000/hr
Partners = $1000+

3/ Most financings are very routine.

This was obvious at Seed (hence YC Safe), but it's also the case at A.

The problem is, as a Founder:

(a) You don't know what you don't know
(b) You don't want to mess it up
(c) You want to close fast
(d) You want to move on to your biz

4/ And that’s how you get trapped.

If you let the lawyers run it, a financing process will easily cost you $150k+.

You need to do 2 things: (1) pick the Lawyer and (2) establish the ground rules.