A nearshore legal assistant on your hours, under your supervision.

The assistant works remotely from a neighboring country, inside your practice management system, during your business day. For US firms the two strongest locations are Mexico and Colombia, and the clock is the main reason.

Mexico’s time-zone law, published in October 2022, ended daylight saving time for most of the country. Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey stay on UTC-6 all year, which matches US Central in winter and Mountain in summer. Colombia stays on UTC-5 all year, matching Eastern in winter and Central in summer.

Assistants work through partner centers we select and manage. You get a named person who learns your matters and your templates, with cover when they’re out.

Sources: Mexico, Ley de los Husos Horarios (Cámara de Diputados) · Colombia legal time, Instituto Nacional de Metrología

Most of the work around a matter is preparation, organization and follow-up. That’s the part a remote assistant can carry, always under a lawyer’s review:

The assistant prepares; the lawyer decides. Legal advice, signing pleadings, court appearances, setting fees and the final review of anything that leaves the firm stay with licensed attorneys.

That line matters beyond quality. A nonlawyer who gives legal advice risks the unauthorized practice of law, and a firm that lets it happen can be assisting it. Write the boundary into the assistant’s instructions: what they can say to a client, what they must route to an attorney and what they never send without sign-off.

ABA Model Rule 5.3 asks lawyers with supervisory authority to make reasonable efforts so a nonlawyer’s conduct is compatible with the lawyer’s own obligations. The comments make clear this covers help from outside the firm too.

Rule 1.6(c) asks for reasonable efforts to prevent unauthorized access to client information. ABA Formal Opinion 08-451, from 2008, says a lawyer may outsource support work while staying responsible for it. It also calls for appropriate disclosure to the client, and for client consent when the provider receives confidential information.

Each state adopts its own version of these rules, and some have their own opinions on outsourcing. Check with your state bar or ethics counsel before you share client files. This page isn’t legal advice.

Sources: ABA Model Rule 5.3, Responsibilities Regarding Nonlawyer Assistance · ABA Model Rule 1.6, Confidentiality of Information

Your duty of confidentiality doesn’t change with the assistant’s address. Most of it is met by how access is set up, so put these rules in writing before anyone logs in:

Calendaring is where a delay hurts most. A court notice that arrives at 10 a.m. should be docketed, checked by an attorney and on everyone’s calendar the same day.

With an assistant in Mexico or Colombia, that loop closes during your day. Questions about a date, a missing exhibit or a client who hasn’t sent documents get answered in hours, not on the next shift. Your attorneys can also join a quick call to walk through a filing packet before it goes out.

Spanish helps too. Many firms serve Spanish-speaking clients, and a bilingual assistant can handle document follow-ups in the client’s own language while the attorney keeps the advice.

Many firms use more than one model for different parts of the work. Here’s how the three compare for legal support.

Offshore usually wins when the work is high volume, follows a written protocol and doesn’t need an attorney’s answer to finish. Think indexing a large production, transcribing a backlog of recordings or formatting exhibits overnight so they’re ready in the morning.

Many firms split the work: offshore for volume that can wait for the next day, nearshore for intake, calendaring and anything that needs a conversation.

Start with one slice of the work and one supervising attorney. Here’s the sequence we’d use.

Shared hours are the starting point, not the difference. These questions show how a provider will actually handle your matters.

OTRO runs legal assistants in Mexico and Colombia through partner centers we select and manage, under one contract and one set of reports. Legal work is one specialty within our wider assistant service, which covers scope, process and every role an assistant can take on.