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Every contact in HoLaCe belongs to exactly one of twelve fixed categories. The categories are the same for every firm — they’re a deliberate taxonomy designed around personal injury practice, not a free-form contact type field. [Screenshot: Contacts page with the 12 category cards across the top, each showing a count]

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Why categories are fixed

A contact’s category controls more than how it’s displayed:
  • Form fields — the contact form shows different fields per category (e.g., adjusters get claim-number and carrier fields; medical providers get NPI and tax-ID fields).
  • Journey linking — when you attach a contact to a journey, the relationship type that’s offered depends on the category (a MEDICAL_PROVIDER can be linked as treating provider, IME, or expert witness; a DEFENDANT can only be linked as defendant or adverse party).
  • Reporting — caseload analytics, fee-attribution, and the COO Engine all bucket activity by contact category.
  • Search — global search filters by category, so you can scope to “find me every adjuster from State Farm” rather than “find me everyone with State Farm in their name.”
Forcing a small fixed taxonomy is what makes those features possible. Free-form contact types would mean every firm reinvents the categorization wheel and the AI has nothing consistent to reason about.

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The twelve categories

CategoryWho fits here
Client RelatedFamily, friends, emergency contacts, next-of-kin — people connected to the client but not the client themselves
WitnessEyewitnesses, character witnesses, fact witnesses (use Expert Witness below for retained experts)
AttorneyOpposing counsel, co-counsel, referring attorneys
Medical ProviderPhysicians, hospitals, urgent cares, imaging centers, physical therapists, chiropractors
InsuranceAdjusters, insurance company contacts, subrogation contacts
Lien HolderMedicare, Medicaid, hospital liens, ERISA liens, ad-hoc medical liens
Expert WitnessRetained medical experts, economists, accident reconstructionists, vocational evaluators
Court / Legal EntityJudges, mediators, arbitrators, court clerks, bailiffs
EmployerHR contacts, payroll, supervisors — used when documenting wage loss
Funding CompanyPre-settlement funding companies, medical funding companies
InvestigatorPrivate investigators, surveillance companies (your own and the other side’s)
DefendantDefendants, adverse parties, at-fault parties — distinct from their attorneys (those go in Attorney)
The plaintiff (client) themselves is not a contact — clients live on the journey itself, not in the contact directory. A client’s emergency contact is what would go in Client Related.

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Picking the right category

Two patterns to keep in mind:
  1. Role, not relationship. Categorize by what role this person plays in plaintiff PI cases generally. A surgeon who later testifies as your retained expert is two records — one Medical Provider for the treatment, one Expert Witness for the retained role. They’re different relationships and you’ll want to bill, contact, and report on them differently.
  2. One contact, one category. Don’t shoehorn a single record into multiple roles — split into two records.

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What if none fit?

If you have a recurring need that none of the 12 categories cover, that’s a signal worth surfacing — open a bug report describing the use case. The taxonomy is fixed today, but it’s evolved before based on real-firm feedback.
Linking and managing contacts on a journey: Managing Contacts.