Hiring a developer in Mexico as a US company

Does anyone have experience with the legal side of hiring an employee or independent contractor in Mexico? I have a friend based in Mexico City who I'd like to hire to do some development work for my startup. These are fairly discrete tasks and I don't necessarily need a lot of control over his work, so it probably looks like like an independent contractor, but I know he would prefer to be in close communication and get my feedback regularly, and this may be fairly long-term. He has a Delaware C corp set up for his own startup, so it would be fairly easy to sign a consulting agreement with his company. I'm sure the first response will be "ask a lawyer", and I did, and their response was "we're not barred in Mexico so we'd have to ask around the firm" and I assume that's going to get pricey for something that feels like a pretty typical request and fairly low risk.