>>standard to be presented a contract that heavily favors the party that wrote the first draft.

Yes, which is why I usually give them one chance to respond to fixes (but if there are too many, nope, not gonna leave dozens of adverse mines in there just because it's impractical to fix them all).0

Also, I've seen plenty of very even-handed contracts; I make sure all the ones I write/have written are even-handed and mutual. It is actually the standard practice for honest businessmen and top lawyers — good business builds mutually beneficial long-term relationships, not just short-term exploitative relationships.

And yes, the fact that they hand you an exploitative contract is a huge tell, and how they respond when you try to make an exploitative contract more even and mutual (and put in enforcement teeth that will benefit your side) will tell you all you need to know about not doing business with them.

No deal is worth being tied to an exploitative partner/investor/entity. It will always end up worse than you ever imagine.

> I mean, it's standard to be presented a contract that heavily favors the party that wrote the first draft.

I'd argue that may be "common" but the "standard" should be to expect a contract that slightly favors the party that wrote the first draft while still sticking to what's market for the vast majority of the terms

> it's standard to be presented a contract that heavily favors the party that wrote the first draft.

It's standard for contract negotiators to be sleazy people that you don't want to have any contact with. Some times that's not even an indication that your counterpart is dishonest.

But still, that's quite a bad marker. Ignore it at your peril.