Question answered in Quora - For setting up a startup is it better to engage a lawyer on his hourly

I would work to get into an incubator. If you get into an incubator through a referral you may be able to get a prestigious law firm to help you with your IP and also get a deferral until you hit a certain milestone, which is usually the first $500K fund raising round or hit $1 million in revenue or something along those lines.

From what I have seen, not all IP law firms take shares, so your options are limited. I think the best way to do this is get into an incubator, every incubator will have a set of criteria, it could be showing a working prototype or having one or two customers or having a solid analysis/report done on why your idea is going to take off big time, for example get some kind of a customer commitments saying they will buy the product or at least use the product for free and will pay upon realizing the value your product offers.

Another way is winning one of the Startup competitions where the prize is $50K worth of free services from an IP law firm.

Good luck.