The lease should specify a fee, large enough to deter you from walking away for a slightly better deal, but (generally) smaller than paying rent for the remaining months. Giving the required notice (mine is 30 days) and paying the fee lets you terminate the lease early while still fulfilling your legal obligations.

It's there primarily for people who need to move because of work, and usually the employer who is relocating them would reimburse it. So, you could probably ask something like, "what if I get transferred to a different office before 12 months is up?"

That will signal some risk that the landlord will have to find a new tenant. My landlord is a REIT, and I live in a large complex with 2 full-time leasing agents onsite, so finding new tenants is not a huge burden for them - they're fine with high turnover. A mom-and-pop landlord might be skittish about that possibility. But it is still better than "what if I can't pay rent because I am unemployed?" Definitely don't ask that :).

> If so, how would I go forward with asking the people about this without seeming high risk?

to a business owner/landlord, asking how much it costs to exit the lease does not mark you as high risk. it just means you know what you're talking about, and they are free to set that value to whatever they want in the contract.