Law Firms Are Choosing Legal Process Outsourcing in Australia: Why You’re Paying Too Much For Support Work

You can have a highly experienced solicitor spending valuable billable time on work that doesn’t require a solicitor’s level of expertise.

You can have someone with years of legal training spending half a day, every day, filling documents and updating a matter record.

No wonder the penny’s finally dropping on the benefits of legal process outsourcing in Australia. Businesses and firms are finally (and secretly) flipping the coin, and more than betting on it.

There’s legal work that needs getting done, and accurately; everyone in the firm has always known that. Only some types of work, and it’s usually the bulk of daily deliverables and procedural tasks, shouldn’t be on the table of those charging the highest hourly rate. They’ve got matters that require their specialization to attend to, after all.

So what do you do if hiring more local paralegals isn’t part of your growth plan?

Why are legal firms turning to outsourcing in Australia?

Why Are Legal Salaries Rising Faster Than Legal Fees in Australia?

Paralegal salary figures are scattered in the wind. In this case, scattered in the algorithms of Search and LLMs. Since there’s no fixed formula or computation, all we can do is find where estimates tip furthest:

SEEK’s average says $75,000 and $90,000, and reports from Indeed and Payscale say it’s $75,159 and $63,015, respectively. For SalaryExpert, the number’s $101,087, and Jobted’s is $56,483.

Tens of thousands of Australian dollars under the same-sounding job titles. And we’re on the nose by saying this is caused, in part, by the job itself:

Online, “paralegals” can be a junior legal assistant and an experienced paralegal. Yet they can have different levels of responsibility and experience.

Then there are the costs attached to the salary.

The Superannuation Guarantee reached 12% on 1 July 2025. Use a $75,000 salary as an example. That absorbs another $9,000 in compulsory superannuation before payroll tax and other employment costs are calculated.

Significance to fixed-fee matters: Despite agreeing on a fee with the client, the cost of getting the work done goes up whenever the work’s assigned to someone with a higher hourly rate.

And do they really have a choice? No one else is there to deal with legal support work.

What is legal process outsourcing in Australia?

Specific legal or legal support work.

Firms don’t have to send everything offshore. What most do is delegate creatively. Those that are routine and follow clear processes go beyond the borders, while legal advice and strategy remain with solicitors.

Common types of outsourced paralegal work:

• Legal research and case summaries
• Document review
• Drafting support
• Discovery support
• File and matter administration
• Data entry and document management (technically, administrative work)

A solicitor remains responsible for the legal work that requires their professional judgment.

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What Legal Tasks Can Be Outsourced in Australia?

What administrative tasks can a legal virtual assistant handle?

All the work, and they drop in regularly, that has to do with accuracy and familiarity with legal processes, without requiring a solicitor to perform it.

These may include:

• Opening files and creating client records
• Managing inboxes and drafting routine correspondence
• Coordinating Verification of Identity requirements
• Tracking deadlines and calendars
• Updating practice management systems
• Providing administrative support for trust accounting
• Maintaining matter records and documents

Busy practice experience shows how these tasks can eat up most of the day without you even realising it.

Can You Outsource Conveyancing in Australia?

Conveyancing is a good example of legal process outsourcing because it’s process-based. The work is guided by repeatable processes.

(trivia)

PEXA handles more than 99% of digital property settlements nationally. There’s plenty of platform-based work surrounding property transactions, from preparing workspaces to gathering searches and getting documents ready.

Offshore conveyancing support you can hand off to legal virtual assistants includes:

• PEXA workspace preparation
• Title and property searches through platforms such as InfoTrack, TriSearch and GlobalX
• Form 1 preparation
• Purchase and sale document drafting
• Pre exchange and post settlement correspondence
• State Revenue Office lodgement support

Once again, the solicitor’s accountable for legal advice and final decisions, but the preparation around those can be given to specialists who don’t have to be in the office to accomplish them.

What Paralegal Tasks Can Be Done Remotely?

More substantive support can be remote. And the rule’s the same. Ideal tasks are:

• Research: finding relevant legislation, cases and authorities and preparing summaries.
• Document work: anything from reviewing contracts to drafting and organising supporting documents.
• Litigation support: discovery assistance and managing case files
• Transcription: preparing transcripts of hearings and depositions where required.

A task can be complicated and still be suitable for remote delegation if the how and who’s responsible are laid down.

Do Offshore Legal Staff Know LEAP, Smokeball, Actionstep and PracticeEvolve?

They can, but you’ll only really know during hiring, and ideally, not after onboarding. A candidate who’s worked extensively in LEAP may still need time to learn Smokeball.

The same is true of a specialist who knows Actionstep. Since Actionstep alone supports nearly 5,000 law firms globally and is widely used in the Australian legal market, candidates tend to have a good grasp of it. But they’ll still need training on a separate factor: in order to get the hang of your firm’s structure and handling of permissions.

In any case, software experience is an important part of the screening process. Better to have knowledge of one your business doesn’t use, because then you’ll know they have the aptitude for systems learning.

How Much Does It Cost to Outsource Legal Work vs. Hiring Locally?

Hiring locally has more to the base salary. That’s just how it is. If a role is $75,000, think ahead and add 12% superannuation; another $9,000 to $9,600. Payroll taxes are on top of that, and more depending on the state and your employment policy. Then there are recruitment and onboarding costs, plus the time it takes for a new employee to become fully productive.

All in all, the total will be $95,000 to $105,000.

Offshore support can come in considerably lower:

The “savings” depends on the role, so asking “how much does legal outsourced staff cost” isn’t cut and dried. For example, if a local senior paralegal is handling the legal support work, the potential savings will be different than if a remote legal virtual assistant is.

What are you currently paying a solicitor or local employee to do something that an offshore specialist can?

Is It Safe to Outsource Legal Work Overseas?

Now we’re moving from routine administrative outsourcing to legal outsourcing.

Your clients’ information is confidential. Their files can contain financial records, personal information, commercial documents, and sensitive legal matters. Should you send that information to specialists outside Australia, you, the firm, continue to have obligations regarding what’s done to it.

Do Australian Privacy Principles Apply to Offshore Legal Staff?

If your firm is covered by the Privacy Act 1988, the Australian Privacy Principles continue to govern how personal information is handled when it is disclosed overseas. The same practical safeguards in local circles are the same ones to consider within remote legal teams.

Always be knowledgeable of, and document the following:

Who can access the files?

Where is information stored?

How is it transferred?

What happens if there is a security incident?

Everything should be clear before client information is delivered to someone else, no matter their location.

Who Should Have Access to Client Data in Legal Outsourcing?

An offshore paralegal can prepare a document, but the solicitor overseeing the matter remains responsible for the legal work and the final product.

The Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules are also relevant. Rule 9 allows confidential client information to be disclosed to employees of the law practice and people engaged by the practice to deliver legal services to a client, subject to the relevant obligations.

Supervision remains the firm’s responsibility.

Another thing: access should match the role. Information irrelevant to a role shouldn’t be within that person’s reach.

Do You Need an NDA When Hiring Legal Virtual Assistants?

Ask the outsourcing provider how information is stored, who can access it, and what happens if there is a breach. A written arrangement should deal with confidentiality, intellectual property, and data handling.

The document should explain what happens to information when the engagement ends.

Related Read: Learn about essential laws SMBs and hybrid law firms should know about.

How Do You Onboard a Remote Legal Assistant?

Start with tasks that have a clear process and a clear finish line. Once the person understands your systems and your way of working, you can expand the scope.

First, choose the work. Administrative tasks and conveyancing preparation are sensible places to begin. Define exactly what the person is responsible for and what comes back to the solicitor.

Then set up access. Give them the practice management system permissions they need. Add PEXA access where relevant. Keep everything else restricted.

Next, establish the standard. Agree on turnaround times, naming conventions, document storage, and how questions should be raised.

Finally, test the arrangement. Lower-risk work at the forefront. Review it closely. Correct the process where necessary before moving into more substantive tasks.

The goal is for the person to understand the firm’s way of doing things, besides learning (if they haven’t experienced using it previously) about the software.

Why Australian Law Firms Choose Remote Staff for Legal Outsourcing

Australian firms, after working with remote legal paralegals and virtual assistants, realise that cost becomes less the main point of outsourcing in the first place. Dedicated support while managing overheads overtakes it.

Remote Staff has placed bookkeeping and accounting professionals with US businesses for over 18 years. We know what to look for in candidates. We understand what Australian law firms require. The legal systems and software ideal hires should have a hand on.

We also handle payroll, onboarding and HR support; your firm won’t have to absorb another administrative job while trying to get one off your list.

FAQs

AU Firms Outsource Legal Process For More Than Savings

Australian law firms have too much legal work being done by people whose time costs far more than the task requires. And that will, soon enough, take its toll.

A solicitor should be spending the $400 hour on legal judgment, strategy and client work. The PEXA preparation, document organisation, research support and matter administration can have another pair of capable hands behind them.

Put the right work with the right person: remote legal virtual assistants for legal support work and specialized legal roles deal with expensive hours and detailed matters.

Find the right remote legal support for your firm. Call us or Request a Callback today.