Resource — Checklist
Remote Paralegal Hiring Checklist
A working checklist for plaintiff personal injury firms hiring a remote paralegal — what to define before you post the role, how to screen for real PI experience, the scenario questions that separate strong candidates, and the security, onboarding, and QA steps that keep the hire working after week one.
Print this page to work through it as a checklist.
1. Define the role before you post it
Most remote hires fail at the definition stage, not the hiring stage. Write these down before you talk to a single candidate.
- List the case types the paralegal will touch (auto, premises, dog bite, UM/UIM) and the case phases they own (intake, treatment, demand, litigation support).
- Count the active files they will carry, and set the ceiling you will not cross.
- Name every system they must work in — case management, document storage, phones, e-signature, calendaring.
- Decide which tasks stay with attorneys or in-office staff, and write the handoff points down.
- Specify language requirements for your client base (many PI practices need fluent Spanish for client contact).
- Set working-hours overlap requirements with your office time zone.
- Define who manages this person day to day — a named supervisor, not "the team".
- Write the 90-day output expectation in numbers: files worked, records requested, demands supported.
2. Screen for real PI experience
"Paralegal experience" on a resume tells you almost nothing. Screen for the specific artifacts of plaintiff personal injury work.
- Ask which documents they have personally prepared: medical record requests, records chronologies, demand letters, subrogation responses, lien correspondence.
- Ask them to describe a treatment timeline they built — what sources they pulled from and how they flagged gaps.
- Verify hands-on time in your case-management platform, or a directly comparable one.
- Request a redacted writing sample: a records summary or demand section, not a cover letter.
- Confirm they understand medical terminology well enough to read records, not just file them.
- Check for insurance-side experience — it can be an asset, but confirm they know plaintiff-side posture and deadlines.
- Run a conflicts check against your active defendants and prior employers.
3. Interview with scenarios, not resumes
Ten minutes of scenario questions beats an hour of resume walkthrough. Score the answers against what your best in-house person would say.
- "A client stopped treating three weeks ago and isn't answering calls. What do you do, in order?"
- "You receive 400 pages of records with a missing date range. Walk me through your next steps."
- "An adjuster calls asking about the demand while the attorney is in deposition. What do you say?"
- "How do you calendar a statute of limitations, and what backup do you set?"
- "A health plan sends a lien notice for more than the settlement offer. What happens next?"
- "Tell me about a file you caught before it became a problem — what was the signal?"
4. Verify confidentiality, security, and any PHI requirements before access
Remote staff may encounter confidential client information and, depending on the assignment, protected health information. Access should begin only after the firm and provider confirm the agreements, controls, and policies that apply to the engagement.
- Document role-appropriate privacy and security training under applicable law, client contract, and firm or provider policy.
- Execute a confidentiality agreement for the engagement. It does not replace a Business Associate Agreement (BAA); if the arrangement requires a BAA, it must be in place before PHI access.
- Permit PHI access only after the firm and provider have confirmed the necessary agreements, minimum-necessary permissions, and handling policy.
- Access is provisioned per-system with named accounts — no shared logins, ever.
- Two-factor authentication is enforced on every system that touches client data.
- A device policy exists: who owns the machine, what is installed on it, what happens at offboarding.
- PHI never moves through personal email, personal cloud drives, or messaging apps.
- Offboarding is written down before onboarding: the exact list of accesses to revoke on the last day.
5. Onboard with structure — the first 30 days
Remote onboarding fails silently. You will not overhear confusion from the next office, so the structure has to replace the hallway.
- Document the top ten workflows they will run — as numbered steps, not tribal knowledge.
- Assign a single point of contact for questions, with a stated response-time expectation.
- Start with a limited file set and review every work product in week one.
- Hold a daily 15-minute check-in for the first two weeks; move to weekly only when quality holds.
- Introduce them to clients deliberately — decide how they are identified on calls and in writing.
- Set explicit escalation triggers: which events go to the attorney the same hour, no judgment call required.
- Score the 30-day output against the expectation you wrote in section 1 — in numbers.
6. Manage and QA — every week after that
Hiring well buys you a good start. Only ongoing QA keeps the standard from drifting once attention moves elsewhere.
- Track output weekly against the file-load and task expectations you set.
- Sample completed work on a schedule — records summaries, deadline entries, client-contact logs — not just when something feels off.
- Audit files periodically for the quiet failure modes: stale tasks, uncalendared deadlines, unanswered client messages.
- Keep a written feedback loop; a remote worker cannot read the room, so tell them directly what is working and what is not.
- Review access lists quarterly and remove anything no longer needed.
- Refresh privacy and security training at the intervals required by applicable law, contract, and policy, and after material process changes.
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