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What a Legal & Paralegal Hire Can Do For Your Business
A Philippines-based legal hire found through Tarino can take on the tasks below, as instructed and under the supervision of a solicitor. Use this as a guide when scoping the role before your call. Our offshore legal assistant role page covers the role, software and screening in more detail.
| Task | What this looks like in practice |
|---|---|
| Email & correspondence management | Managing high-volume inboxes. Drafting routine correspondence for solicitor review. Filing emails to matter folders. |
| Calendar & diary management | Scheduling client appointments, court dates and internal meetings. Sending reminders and managing conflicts. |
| File & matter management | Opening and maintaining matter files in practice management software (e.g. LEAP, Smokeball, Clio). Archiving closed matters. |
| Data entry & CRM | Maintaining accurate client and matter records. Updating contact details, deadlines and billing information. |
| Meeting minutes | Recording accurate file notes and meeting summaries. Distributing them to the relevant team members promptly. |
| Process documentation | Documenting workflows, precedents and SOPs as processes change or are created. |
| Task | What this looks like in practice |
|---|---|
| Document preparation & formatting | Preparing, formatting and proofreading legal documents, including contracts, deeds, affidavits and court forms, for solicitor review. |
| Precedent management | Maintaining and updating document precedent libraries. Adapting templates for new matters as instructed. |
| Court document preparation | Preparing court filings, statements of claim and lodgement documents. Checking for completeness before the solicitor approves submission. |
| Contract review support | Reviewing contracts against a checklist for missing clauses, key dates and standard terms. Flagging issues for solicitor attention. |
| Lease & property document support | Preparing disclosure statements, contract of sale documents and transfer forms for conveyancing and property matters. |
| Legal research | Running preliminary research on legislation, case law and regulatory requirements. Summarising findings clearly for solicitor review. |
| Task | What this looks like in practice |
|---|---|
| Time entry & billing support | Entering billable time accurately in practice management software. Preparing draft invoices for solicitor review. |
| Trust accounting support | Maintaining trust ledgers and records following your state’s trust accounting rules and your firm’s procedures. Preparing trust reconciliations for review. |
| Deadline & limitation tracking | Monitoring key matter dates, court deadlines and limitation periods. Alerting the team well in advance. |
| Client onboarding | Preparing engagement letters, costs agreements and identity verification documentation for new clients, for solicitor approval. |
| Regulatory & compliance filing | Lodging documents with ASIC, through PEXA, with court registries or other bodies as instructed. Tracking lodgement status. |
| Task | What this looks like in practice |
|---|---|
| Client updates | Sending matter progress updates to clients at agreed intervals. Responding to routine enquiries professionally. |
| Settlement coordination | Coordinating settlement logistics, including document exchange and PEXA workspace preparation, with funds authorised by the responsible solicitor. |
| Disbursement tracking | Recording and reconciling matter disbursements. Making sure every cost is captured for billing. |
Legal work carries a heavy administrative load: document preparation, billing, deadline tracking and client correspondence. Much of it doesn’t need a locally admitted solicitor to do it. Many Philippines-based legal support professionals have worked with Australian practice management platforms like LEAP, Smokeball and Clio and understand the care legal work demands. For firms paying Australian salaries for work that can be done remotely, during your business hours, the cost case is straightforward. Compare the options for your firm in the offshore hiring cost calculator.
What stays with your solicitors
Legal advice, court appearances, signing documents, approving trust payments and anything that needs a practising certificate stay onshore with your solicitors. Your hire prepares, checks and tracks; your solicitors review, decide and sign. Supervision rules, trust accounting obligations and client confidentiality requirements still apply to everything your hire touches, and they vary by state. Tarino shares general guidance only and doesn’t give legal or compliance advice, so check your obligations with your law society or regulator before you set up access. Our offshore staff security checklist covers setting up system access safely.
Set up this way, a legal hire can lower your risk as well as your costs: deadlines are tracked by someone whose job is tracking them, documents are checked before they reach a solicitor, and trust records are kept current instead of caught up at month end.
How we screen for legal roles
Legal support roles demand precision, discretion and the ability to work within strict processes without shortcuts. We typically start with 1,000+ candidates per role and screen them in stages: CV and quality screening (40% remain), video screening (20%), a practical assessment (10%), a structured interview (5%) and finalist review (2%). For legal roles, the practical assessment tests legal software proficiency, document accuracy and written English. You get a shortlist of 3–4 finalists in about 2 weeks.
What it costs
Tarino’s fee is one-time: $250 upfront to start the search plus $4,750 when you hire, $5,000 excl. GST in total, with the $250 credited back when you hire. Your firm hires and pays them directly, with no monthly markup. More than 95% of our placements are still in the role at 6 months, and 6-month replacement cover applies for the same role, on the conditions in the Scope of Work and terms. Read how other practices use offshore support on our law firms industry page.
If your solicitors are spending billable hours on admin, or your support staff are stretched across too many matters, it’s worth a conversation. Book a 30-minute call to scope the role.
This page is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Check your situation with a qualified adviser.