Hiring an IT consultant can be a good way for a company to temporarily bolster its workforce for project-specific tasks, but it's not as simple as just adding a desk, experts say. To avoid legal issues, the first steps are to determine whether a consultant is an employee or an independent contractor and to draft clear contract language that protects a firm's intellectual property and trade secrets. Just as important is ensuring your consultant isn't going to leave his or her post without making sure full-time employees are up to speed on what was accomplished, this article notes.