I've come to the same methodolgy. I've been burned only a couple of times but learned my lesson the very expensive legal way when trying to get paid. $12,000 in legal fees to get paid for a $6000 bill. What a great legal system we have. There's nothing like having a totally false countersuit filed that you have to prove as being false to quickly run up the legal bills.
We won in the end but we lost in the cost. I'm sure my client paid more than double in legal fees though since his lawyer was about $200/hr.