Early lawyer engagement is invaluable.

Retaining experienced legal counsel early in any business transaction or dispute is probably the smartest and most cost-effective strategy that you could make.  The cost savings cannot be fully quantified, since a skilled business lawyer will either prevent or negotiate out expensive contractual conditions and clauses, while establishing the basis for a more amicable business relationship where all of the parties clearly understand and respect their obligations under their commercial agreements, or in the case of a developing dispute, endeavour to find a viable negotiated solution that reduces the level of confrontation and animosity.

You should never wait until the final agreement is about to be signed to engage legal counsel (although if you are at this stage, we can seek to minimize your legal exposure and, where possible, re-negotiate injurious contractual provisions that had been unwittingly agreed upon).  Instead, you should be looking to engage the right business lawyer at the very outset of the process, even if its simply to get their preliminary thoughts over the telephone.  In my own professional experience, people are pleasantly surprised by how much benefit they receive from contacting myself at the outset of any business transaction or dispute and quickly realize that the benefits of knowledge and experience are put to best use when attained at the beginning of the process.