> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.holace.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Contacts Tab

> Adding and linking the people, providers, and parties tied to a Journey.

A personal injury case touches a lot of people — the client, witnesses, opposing counsel, doctors, adjusters, lien holders, employers, and more. The **Contacts** tab on a Journey is where you capture all of them in one structured place so the rest of the system (demand letters, communications, conflict checks) can use the right person at the right time.

\[Screenshot: Contacts tab with contacts grouped by category, each showing role, phone, and email]

## The 12 contact categories

HoLaCe uses a fixed set of 12 categories so every contact has a clean role. You pick the category when you add the contact:

<Columns cols={3}>
  <Card title="Client-Related">
    Family, friends, emergency contacts.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Witness">
    Eyewitnesses and fact witnesses.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Attorney">
    Opposing counsel, co-counsel, referring attorneys.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Medical Provider">
    Physicians, hospitals, imaging centers, therapists.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Insurance">
    Adjusters, insurance companies, subrogation contacts.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Lien Holder">
    Medicare, Medicaid, hospital and other liens.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Expert Witness">
    Medical experts, economists, accident reconstructionists.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Court / Legal Entity">
    Judges, mediators, arbitrators, court clerks.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Employer">
    HR, payroll, supervisors (used for wage-loss documentation).
  </Card>

  <Card title="Funding Company">
    Pre-settlement and medical funding companies.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Investigator">
    Private investigators and surveillance companies.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Defendant">
    Defendants, adverse parties, at-fault parties.
  </Card>
</Columns>

The category drives **category-specific fields** — picking *Insurance* surfaces fields like Insurance Company, Claim Number, Policy Limits; picking *Medical Provider* surfaces Specialty and Provider Type; and so on.

## Adding a contact

<Steps>
  <Step title="Click + Add Contact">
    Top-right of the Contacts tab.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Pick a category">
    The form fields update based on what you pick.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Fill in the details">
    Name and at least one of phone or email is required. Everything else is optional but pays off later.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Save">
    The contact links to this Journey and (optionally) to your firm-wide contact directory if it's a reusable contact.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Tip>
  Many contacts (a frequently-used adjuster, a familiar opposing counsel, a regular expert witness) live in your firm's **shared directory** — when you start typing a name in the contact form, HoLaCe suggests existing entries so you don't re-enter them. See the deep dive linked below.
</Tip>

## Linking vs. creating

There are two ways a contact ends up on a Journey:

* **Create new** — first time you've seen this person/company at your firm. They get added to your firm directory and linked to this Journey.
* **Link existing** — they're already in your directory (e.g., the same adjuster you dealt with on three other cases). Just link the existing record so updates propagate everywhere.

The form auto-suggests links as you type a name, phone, or email.

## How contacts feed the rest of HoLaCe

Once a contact is on a Journey, the rest of the system knows about them:

* **Demand letters** auto-fill the addressee from the linked Insurance contact's adjuster info
* **Conflict checks** scan defendant and insurance contacts against your other Journeys
* **Negotiation log** uses the adjuster contact for the offer/response timeline
* **Communications log** (coming soon) routes calls and emails to the right contact card

Skipping the Contacts tab and only filling free-text fields elsewhere works in the short term but disconnects the data — you lose conflict checking, repeat-adjuster intelligence, and the cleaner demand-letter generation.

## Editing and removing

Click any contact card to edit it. You can:

* Update any field
* Change the category (warns if dependent records exist)
* **Unlink** from the Journey — keeps the contact in your directory, just removes the connection here
* **Delete** — permanently removes the contact (firm admin only, requires confirmation)

\[Screenshot: Editing a contact card, showing the category-specific fields for Insurance with adjuster and claim info]

## Where to go next

<Note>
  Deep dive: [Contacts & Address Book → Categories, Custom Fields, and Firm Directory](/admin-cross-cutting/contacts/categories) covers contact directory management, bulk import, custom fields, and merging duplicates.
</Note>