> it doesn't make sense to spend hours papering over a legal agreement with someone who wants to sell seven copies of a book at an anarchist book-fair

Huh, you're right. That's not at all a correct use of the phrase "paper over." There are three more uses, too, vaguer and thus less obviously wrong. I wonder what the deal is.

In this particular sentence, "going over" would fit.

However, in general I think Cory is (mis)using the phrase as if it means "legitimize" or "associate a paper trail with": not just to review the wording but to come up with the wording in the first place. (Not just "going over" but "working up.") I could just barely believe this is the jargon of some lawyerly (sub)culture.