Smart Business spoke to Lee Dresie, a partner at Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger LLP, about ensuring that your business does not assume all the risk in a transaction by carefully examining form contracts.

Form contracts account for more than 80 percent of all agreements used to complete business transactions today. That percentage may be even higher when it comes to commercial real estate transactions like the ones you signed to acquire a corporate headquarters or satellite offices.

Unfortunately, many executives do not carefully review the specifics of a form contract before signing. Instead, they assume the form contract to be an agreement equitable to both parties. However, unless the form is an industry-neutral form such as one from the AIR Commercial Real Estate Association or Commercial Association of Realtors, terms in a standard form contract are designed to favor the party that presents it....