Most of the investment were notes and I understand it is way easier - however the first investment from 500startups were shares. we signed on a SPA (stock purchase agreement) and did some other stuff as well. Most of it were done using Right Signature and quite fast to close.
The person on the other hand handling this process was not specifically a lawyer.
I hope this can shed some light - I'm not saying you can necessarily remove your lawyer from the equation but I am quite sure you could reduce that number to be non-significant.
Perhaps you should talk to 500startups :) They are doing lot of deals and I never saw them charge anything for the deal - they must be doing something right :)
