Thanks for reading this long but fun post! :)

Greetings all! I always get great answers and insight to questions I have on here so I thought I'd try hitting you all with another one. Our firm has been growing exponentially. It is exciting, but of course there are growth pains. We don't have enough office space to hire another paralegal or legal assistant, unless we turn our conference room into more desk space, which would only cause more problems. As the senior paralegal for the firm, I've been working with the managing director of the company to maximize productivity. For example, we have purchased software, HotDocs, to automate the drafting of a lot of our pleadings. Though I still believe we have a little bit of room to maximize individual productivity, it is inevitable that we will need additional hands. Over the past two years, we have looked at purchasing additional space in the building the corporate building that we are located in, but none of the other tenants have shown any desire to downsize or relocate. We are so crunched on space that my assistant literally has a desk in the middle of the hallway next to my office. The attorney/owner of the company is almost 70 years old and has zero desire to relocate the office, as he just wants to retire in a few years.

Now for the fun part. I have always had a desire to work remotely. My mom had the opportunity to work a remote job as a VP with CISCO when I was a child and I really desire the flexibility that a remote job allows. I also would like to travel. My goal is to continue to maximize productivity and automate basic functions like data entry, drafting, etc. I already could do 90% of my job from home. Once I am able to work on a completely remote basis, I am interested in the idea of traveling to a foreign country, such as the Philippines. My question is, does anyone have any experience at all with hiring an overseas assistant to help with legal work? Theoretically, in the above scenario I would be there to train employees and provide oversight. I know there are companies that advertise virtual paralegal/legal secretary work.

Thanks for any input. This post is more about throwing the idea out there and seeing what kind of feedback I get. If you foresee any problems or would like to offer any alternative suggestions, feel free to share as well.