> I certainly am not going to lawyer up aggressively.

I think what they're saying is that you and your partner both go see the lawyer, together, and sit down and work out the details, not that you get a lawyer on your own. The idea is that you first discuss what kind of terms you want, and then the lawyer helps make that a legal reality, and maybe helps you think of things that you hadn't considered.

By the way, it's an inspiring story: the fact that you didn't "get rich quick" makes it more real, something anyone could do by trying hard and with a bit of luck.

When we started http://www.shadowcat.co.uk/ I was working on contract before the company got incorporated, then free for a while, then slightly paid, then my partner came in free for a while, then he got paid.

There was paperwork and stuff involved saying we owned half each but I left the whole thing to him - the entire point of having a business side co-founder was so I could do tech and not care about it. He put stuff in front of me, I signed it.

To quote a more well known example, Oracle's first accountant was apparently the pizza delivery guy who was a student of such - and told "pay yourself what you need, we couldn't tell anyway".

Sometimes not trusting people just gives you worry and a false sense of being protected. My partner couldn't've told the difference if I'd cloned our work, claimed a backup accident and sold it independently. If we thought there was any chance the other would screw us we'd never have founded together in the first place. Maybe we got lucky by being right, but most company formations require a fair chunk of luck somewhere to survive so I'm not worrying much about it.