Doing it alone is tempting. I found this on an old Google Answers post the other day:
I have a patent and trademark for a plastic trash bag clip. It is designed to be extruded in plastic, then cut by machine to size. I have spent about $10,000 on legal fees, and $8,000 traveling to Monterrey, [...]
Once upon a time (now) in a far away land (here) a product development company (us) came upon a great product concept. The inventor was eager to get his idea developed and because of the nature of this specific industry, time to market was paramount. The product was beyond our inventors technical expertise, [...]