If you don’t ask, the answer is always “no”.  So ask.  Some people are better at this than others, but everyone can learn.  If someone gives you a form contract to sign, and parts of it are offensive, ask to have them removed.  They may say no . . . but they may say yes.  It is like turning your turn signal on while driving on the highway: sometimes someone will let you in.  Sometimes that isn’t enough, and you have take even more assertive steps; but the first step is to make the request.

One way this comes up a lot is when you get a form contract or are otherwise starting from the other party’s contract.  It is especially true when the other party sends a PDF of the agreement, which is one of my personal pet peeves — the implied assumption being that you will have no need to edit it.  Ask for a Word document, and make the changes you need in track-changes mode.

Laborghini “taxi” photo by Damian Morys, cc-by.