lawyer up

Verb

lawyer up (third-person singular simple present lawyers up, present participle lawyering up, simple past and past participle lawyered up)

1. (US, informal, intransitive) To exercise one's right to legal representation; to engage the services of a lawyer.
   • You'd better lawyer up!
   • By the time patrol cars got to the friend's house, so had her lawyer. With her attorney running blocker, police could not even ascertain if Grubman had been driving the car, says Suffolk County district attorney James Catterson. "She was lawyered up, as we like to say."2001 July 15, Amanda Ripley, “Rage Of The Hamptons”, in Time, archived from the original on 29 Mar 2012
2. (US, informal, intransitive) To conduct matters in accord with legal formalities or so as to avoid legal risk.
   • Whenever we do business with those guys, we lawyer up to protect ourselves.
   • And I'll bet what you hated the most was that they identified me as a co-founder of Facebook, which I am. You better lawyer up asshole, because I'm not coming back for 30%, I'm coming back for EVERYTHING.2010, Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network, spoken by Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield)
3. (informal, transitive) To arrange in a way reflecting legal advice.
   • By the time we finished lawyering up the agreement, we didn't want to sign it.