Ask HN: What legal advice do you wish you knew when you first started?

Advice I wish I knew when I first went freelancing in the UK:

Professional indemnity and public liability insurance is inexpensive, can save you an absolute fortune and there's never a good excuse for not having it.

I've been using With Jack for a while now and they are outstanding - https://withjack.co.uk/

Client selection and client management matter far more than bullet proof contracts. They are also much much harder.

Good luck.

No deal is too good to walk away from.

Get a partnership agreement written by an actual lawyer. The few hundred spent up front can save you tens of thousands in the long run, and can keep partnership expectations in check from day one.

You can't outsource understanding how the law works. You should get a lawyer to draft your agreements, but you need to tell them what you want those agreements to say. The lawyer will explain some of the considerations to you, but at the end of the day, you have to make the decisions --- which means you need to understand things.