HoudiniESQ

HoudiniESQ: A promising case management program

Kommentare: Overall, I am very satisfied with HoudiniESQ. I have used the one-account free version to manage the cases for my budding law firm for several months now. The program is relatively straight-forward. Many of the program's parameters can be readily customized, which I appreciate. Also, it can upgraded to accommodate my growing legal practice. Customer service is generally pretty on-point when it comes resolving occasional issues. Plus, the price can't be beat! For a sole-proprietor like me, the fact that the program is offered free of charge for a one-seat account, was a big selling point when I was opening up my law firm. However, as with any case management program, there are a few drawbacks to HoudiniESQ that I would like to see corrected. For instance, some minor cleanup may be necessary when it comes to invoices. Presently, I have to limit the length of each task that I enter into HoudiniESQ for any given client because, if the task description is on the longer side, it will be cut off on my invoice, with a "..." appearing at the end. I wish that the program could simply carry over the rest of the task description to the line below. Also, there is another invoicing issue. More specifically, if a decide to not charge a client for a task, but still want to have the task appear on the invoice as a "no charge," I have to remember not to open up the task again after I put "0" for the charge about b/c, if I do, HoudiniESQ will automatically refill the charge amount per the going rate for the task, effectively overriding my override. Left unnoticed, this issue can cause MAJOR issues b/c the error tends to spill over to future invoices. Another issue that needs to be addressed has to do with calendaring. I regularly use Google Calendar for organization. But, almost immediately after syncing my HoudiniESQ with my Google Calendar, I had to turn off syncing. The problem was that syncing made all of my case tasks appear on my Google Calendar, regardless of whether the task was an upcoming hearing reminder or a notation that I received and read a letter from an opposing attorney. In effect, my Google Calendar became heavily cluttered, showing tasks that have no reason to be on my calendar. In short, I would like more control over the calendar syncing option and invoicing. I trust that these issues can be fixed in future updates. But, all-in-all, I am very happy with this program and I think that it shows great promise. Thank you, and keep up the good work!

The best there is but not for the entry level user

Kommentare: Cons: HoudiniEsq has learning curve. This is not a terrible thing when all things are considered. The product is feature rich. It does a lot of things and does them very well but getting setup does take time. Since every organization has its own way of doing things it would be difficult to have a system that is customized to a particular preference out of the box. I think if there was a way to add custom fields or change labels directly on the forms instead of a admin panel it would really make the setup more intuitive. Pros: HoudiniEsq really shines when it comes to collecting data. You can customize the product. Fields can be added to Matters, Contacts and Events. You can have fields placed by the record's type, subtype and or status code. Fields only appear if they apply. This unclutters the screens. I love the fact that we can place fields based on a status code. As a case moves from one phase to another, new fields appear and the others are hidden. A huge benefit is the ability to create custom forms. Forms are child records of a matter. This enables us to collect a lot of very specific but repetitive information like injuries for each party without having to see hundreds of fields on screen. Each form neatly collects and displays this information. It deserves a mention that you can change practically any label in the system as well. Another area we are very pleased with is the ability to create templates that will merge data including custom fields. We can generate one document or several in a single shot. We like the ability to use these templates with the workflow automation feature to generate supporting docs automatically. The workflow automation feature isn't limited to docs. You can calendar events, send email, reminders and notifications. HoudiniEsq is worth a serious look. I would not suggest this product to a Solo although according to the HoudiniEsq LinkedIn group solos are very happy with it. HoudiniEsq isn't an entry level product like My Case or Clio. Simplicity isn't its mainstay it is the ability to handle the complex that sets it apart. If you wouldn't use Pro Law then you probably shouldn't consider HoudiniEsq. I'm not saying Solos should stay away, the solos who do use HoudiniEsq seem to be the enterprising upstarts who are growing their businesses quickly. Currently not for Solos, a con only if you need an entry level product. I give HoudiniEsq 5 stars overall because it really can do remarkable things.

A good program that just hasn't kept up with the time

Kommentare: I used HoudiniEsq for about five months when I first opened my firm, and my experiences with it were a little mixed. The program itself is extremely powerful and has many features which can be used to automate a lot of billing and correspondence tasks... but only if you can figure out how to use them. Take billing, for example. Some of my clients are the typical "charge an up-front retainer, then bill by the hour" clients, and the billing settings were easily adapted to that use and would produce nice invocies relatively easily. However, a large portion of my clients are billed a flat-fee for my services, but I would still like to provide them with an itemized bill showing the hours I worked on their case. After days of experimenting, trying to make sense of the Houdini support documents, and just generally pulling my hair out I gave up. I couldn't make it work. Houdini does definitely excel in providing you with every option and feature under the sun. In my months working with it, I never came across a major feature which a competitor offered but Houdini didn't. But again, those features require you to learn how to use them. The user interface is, to put it kindly, dated and not very intuitive. The user experience, then, is more about learning Houdini's quirks of placement decisions and icon choice and adapting your use to it. Even after five months of use I still hadn't taught myself Houdini's interface well enough to really describe myself as "comfortable" with it. But then there's the feature that drew me in to begin with: The cost. For solo firms, Houdini is free of charge. Some people will warn you that you get what you pay for, but with Houdini that's not really true. You do, in fact, get a very full featured very powerful practice management suite for no cost at all to you. But you also get to adapt your working habits to its interface and workflow style, because it will not adapt to you. I consider myself quite computer savvy, I set up my own phone system for my office, but I still had a heck of a time figuring out how to make Houdini do some of what I knew it could do. So if you're a solo who's attracted by the price, but who doesn't have a lot of time to learn the quirks of the program, then you may be better off picking again. In the end, my final verdict on it is this: Houdini was, once, on-par with the other practice management options; but Houdini has failed to keep up with the times, and it shows in many ways.

Review of HoudiniESQ

Kommentare: Pros: Platform independent and on-premise and cloud options. Features and included plugins Cloud services integration Browser interface. Scalable licensing. Multiple supported back-end database choices. Opportunity to architect legitimate HA and DR solutions. Cons: Adobe Flash as a front end is somewhat of a non sequitur. My experience with support has been measured in days. I've had to send follow up emails after no response for 3+ days to hopefully keep a support request alive. I'm currently on day 9 waiting for a response. I don't necessarily expect a solution, but I do expect a response; especially after multiple follow up emails. I've done some testing with "short codes" but the product feels a bit reliant on the mouse to navigate the interface and input data. The document storage architecture appears to only offer a single folder approach when storing files and templates. A nested physical folder structure is preferred and common in firms. Logical folders by matter, case type and doc type would be an advantage when dealing with many templates and files. This might also exclude the need to manually (re)assign and maintain the metadata assignments of all documents via the gui interface. Finally, the doc management approach requires full commitment to document access and management through the user interface and the provided plugins. Integration with a content management system or a scanning and imaging solution while possible via ECF, is a non-starter due to the required manual cloning of documents into IRIS The API while advertised as simple and easy to use appears to not have much if any documentation or reference material to support very simple proof of concept integrations Finally, the reputation of HoudiniESQ on the street is "it's one-man shop". Overall Impression: My overall impression of the product is good. I like the platform and the enterprise approach. The coverage of specific and general needs of many different law firms is impressive. Integrations are there for targeted solutions like Google,Dropbox,Evernote but integrations outside of those select few seem dependent upon the development pipeline. The full commitment required to IRIS with little to no opportunity to bring enterprise doc management/workflow automation to the solution is a little unnerving. Generally speaking the feel of the platform is constrained primarily by the UI and doc management.

Does what it does better than the others...

Kommentare: (Full disclosure: I am an INDEPENDENT legal practice management consultant who chooses which products I want to work with... and a HoudiniEsq consultant - among others.) HoudiniEsq is one of a few legal practice management products that actually gets it: it will do a lot of end-user concepts (custom forms, triggers, document management/generation) better than any other legal practice management product. It also does a lot of the administration concepts (true relational database; updates that work and don't force you to roll back because they don't install properly, flexibility to run in almost any environment) very well too. HoudiniEsq makes it easy to capture and bill time; it allows firms the ability to create and store data on custom forms that provide the firm with the necessary data in order to function efficiently; it is intuitive and continues to add new features that mean something to the user base, and not just something a marketing guy thought would be great to list on a brochure - heck I don't even know if they have a "marketing guy"! Mobility is probably it's strongest point: it can be accessed by a phone/tablet/laptop, and an iPhone app is in the works (currently it's biggest end-user request.) The list of what it doesn't do is a small list: besides the above-mentioned iPhone app, electronic billing is probably at the top. It continues to grow its list of end-user features, often because the developer listens to the requests that come directly from its users. And the price: FREE for solos? You cannot beat that deal. Add more users and pay more, but you are still paying for a product that works, and every time they make a product release the response from the user base is "Yes!" and not "So what? Does this stuff actually work?" Want to write a check and not deal with updates, backups and server updates - go with the SaaS version and pay monthly. If you still prefer the idea of your data residing on your servers in your office, then go with the On-premise version. Not all practice management programs offer both options. While not perfect (no software is), it ranks at the top of my list when clients look for legal practice management software.

generally acceptable but some report and bill features are not user friendly

Kommentare: Mostly time entries and reporting; we use a separate billing system.

Vorteile:

The calendar shows work items at a glance which is convenient. You can change the time span of each item by moving the starting time or ending time of that item.

Nachteile:

difficult to generate matter reports showing excel work narratives with time costs; this is important as we need to report to client regularly without billing. The matter number sometimes leaps and has to be manually adjusted each new matter is opened.

Great Software with a Few Speed-Bumps

Kommentare: I have used Houdini Esq on the Mac for several months now as a solo practitioner. I use it primarily for case management and invoicing. The great thing about this software is that the interface just makes sense, and it is feature rich and comprehensive. I have case and event management, document templates, and trust management and invoicing all in one place. In other words, I don't have to switch between multiple programs to get the job done, which is something I love, and it isn't hard to pick up . . . once you get it going. That's the speed bump. First, my set-up is probably not conventional. I have a single laptop, with a main user account, and a secondary user account that I use for my law practice. When I first installed Houdini, if I started my computer, logged into my law practice user account, and tried to open Houdini, in any web browser, I would get an error saying that the local host was not found. I finally discovered that I would first have to start up the file "HoudiniESQ_start" to fix this error. Additionally, I don't think that this install is doing the automatic backups as advertised, but I use Time Machine, so I'm not too worried. Second, I wish that there was more control over invoices. I would like to be able to list the start and stop times for events, the option to include tasks that are not billed, and include my logo at top. However, the controls for these are limited-to-nonexistant. Finally, there are some strange quirks with the interface. For example, sometimes I can't get menus to close unless I close the whole window containing the menu. Also, sometimes my events won't show up in the Dashboard unless I go to another tab and back. If they made a shift away from the browser-based interface, I would not complain at all. These are my main complaints, and none of them are deal breakers for me, especially when otherwise you are getting a comprehensive, easy to use software that should be enough for any legal professional. If you are on a Mac, it is just about the only real locally-based client management software worth considering.

Review of Houdini ESQ

Kommentare: As a bookkeeper in a law firm, Houdini ESQ presents some challenges. The program is very user friendly overall, except for certain bookkeeping limitations. It is easy to teach, and the learning curve is small. There is no way to generate a true prebill, an invoice in invoice format prior to finalizing all information for invoicing. The prebill screen does not print the matter name, or balances due, or trust balances. If an invoice is generated to be used for reviewing prior to finalizing, it is necessary to delete that invoice, make any needed changes, then regenerate the invoice - a cumbersome, time-consuming process. If edits are made to events on a printed prebill (one of our partners prefers to review his invoices on paper and have me make the changes), it is necessary to "find" the event and make the edit in the system. If multiple events are to be edited, as often occurs, each time I save the changed event, the screen flips back to the top and I have "find" the next event for editing, rather than being able to continue chronologically forward to make all necessary changes. Either keeping the screen at the event just changed and being able to go forward chronologically, or being able to search by date/time, would make this process much easier. The Houdini generated statement of account lists every invoice, payment, and all charges ever generated for the client's matters. Our office prefers to generate statements indicating only the prior open balance, if it was paid when the payment was applied, and only for matters with activity during the prior 60-90 days. We have to generate a manual statement in order to limit the amount of information provided to the clients. When payment is received in a lump sum with more than one open invoice, Houdini does not automatically apply the payment back to the prior open invoices -- this has to be done manually, again a time-consuming, cumbersome task. We are happy with the program and its learnability. We'd just like some fine tuning to be done. Thanks for the opportunity to share.

It's been worth sticking with.

Kommentare: The Pros:
The price. The power and flexibility. The ability to integrate. Continuous improvement. These guys are constantly working to make a better product. The support staff. I was a bit cranky with the way the whole flash problem went down, but I get the impression that was a significant stressor for Houdini, as well. They seem to have worked hard to overcome that, and since then have continued to provide "on the spot," "out of their way," profoundly dedicated service. The cons:
The learning curve is significant. Houdini is anything but plug and play. It takes significant time to get comfortable with the various modules, which are not always, and especially not at first, intuitive. Integration ability generally limited to microsoft products. Would love to see the ability to integrate with something like libre office and Mozilla's Thunderbird (not sure if the coding time is worth it for Huodini, but I would love it.) Buggy - weird things happen from time to time, like already added events or contacts "disappearing" from a matter. They tend to reappear after one (or a few) restarts, or after a patch, but they keep me in constant fear of losing some important data. The way ledgers work could be much smoother. I hate having to generate a bill to give a discount, and then having to produce a statement to reflect the discount, and then give the client two sheets of paper with an explanatory letter because without an explanation it won't make much sense to the client. It can be even more painful when generating the statement brings up every matter I have handled for a client that is still open, even though I only want to provide 1 bill for one matter at the time. Overall, I stick with Houdini because it provides what I need, appears powerful enough to provide what I will require as I grow, and, most importantly, because it is constantly improving. Houdini appears genuinely interested in what its users want and is continually working to provide just that. Once a person gets over the learning curve, Houdini is hard to beat.

Somewhat user friendly, but can be customized with help from support. Has potential to be great

Kommentare: Cloud based, easy to use out of the office.

Vorteile:

Templates are easy to use. The fact that it is cloud-based is excellent; relatively easy learning curve.

Nachteile:

Email feature saves all image files from email, rendering this feature unusable. Keyword search feature in Documents does not function correctly, only partially works. Interface is not the most user friendly and requires knowledge of ins and outs of Houdini which must be obtained from customer support. Developers will not fix the above issues or do not know how. To have a feature of a program only partially work is subpar. Also, the invoicing feature defies commons sense.

Great Program.

Kommentare: The is used to maintain time spent on matters and printing invoices.

Vorteile:

Very user friendly. Dashboard is easy accessed and filled with information at a glance. Time entry is easy as well as client/matter setup.

Nachteile:

Some reports are still not correct. Technical support not always helpful. Accounts Receivable Aging report is a mess. Most of the time I cannot use this report. Program does not calculate interest charge on outstanding balances.

Heartfelt Review!

Kommentare: At the law practice of Danielle S. Archer, we have been using this product for just about 1 Year and we are really excited about the usability and flexibility of the product. Managing matters has become a breeze, at just the click of a button. Where before we had problems locating files and documents. Difficulties staying in touch and communicating with our clients, whilst updating them on the status of their matter is now a thing of the past. Even though the software is mostly tailored to US based law-firms our in house paralegal and technical personnel has used the flexibility of Houdiniesq to facilitate our matters and our office. We only ask that you make an effort to add our jurisdiction to calendar based events and a flexible currency choice. Aside from issue with currency Houdiniesq has made our office efficiency now at A+ level, had we known about this tool before it would have been our main focus. Our in house paralegal and Technical personnel has been using the product long before we decided to purchase without us knowing, and became so efficient remembering dates and matters while managing his time effectively. We wondered what his secret was until Houdiniesq was revealed to us by him. Our encounters with customer service is always pleasant and fruitful. We have never called without a response and or a solution. Kevin is a world class agent. No matter the time we call he is always there to assist. Overall an excellent product !

Couldn't run my law practice without HoudiniESQ

Kommentare: Organized my practice...makes it much easier to stay on top of matters and billing.

Vorteile:

Flexibility is most important for my niche practice. I am able to customize HoudiniESQ to meet my exact needs.

Nachteile:

Updates can be buggy, but the rep is very responsive to getting issues fixed if you give him a call or email. Tutorials need to be updated more frequently so that I don't have to call tech support to find out how to do something.

Review of Houdini

Kommentare: The product I find to be useful. It has easy to read billing. It is great that it is cloud based. That is the biggest asset for me. It is also multi-faceted that you can do other things with it aside from billing. The fact you can not only track revenue but also store documents is great. What I have found frustrating in learning to use the system which I am by no means an expert is that the customer service I have found to be hasty and sometimes a bit rude. I have in a pinch had to talk to various people and they have acted like they are pushed for time or slightly condescending. I always feel like the dummy calling the techy. Believe me if the attorneys are calling the tech firm directly for billing we have tried multiple times to get the question done with first picking up the phone. I also have had long response times in waiting for call backs or no call at all returned. I have considered changing billing but I have decided as of now to keep my business with Houdini in the hopes that I 1. won't have major questions that require phone calls or 2. Get someone in the office that can assist in learning the fine nuances of the program. It would also be great if there was a single cheat sheet for frequent questions/Hints rather than looking through a library of videos and parceling through a page worth of articles.

Great Software

Kommentare: HoudiniEsq is a great for case management, document management and billing! Technical support is extremely helpful and greatly assists with making the software tailored for our firm.

Vorteile:

Ease of use - very user friendly.

Great product. Wonderful service

Kommentare: I started my law practice a little over a year ago, and have been using HoudiniESQ since the beginning. I learned my way around the program by watching the tutorial videos on the main website and reading the forums. Because I run a small practice, often times I will bill out to my clients based on their individual needs, and while other programs weren't able to customize client matters based on those needs, Houdini could. The invoices and statements look professional, and billing and time keeping is a breeze. Especially if you bill in tenths like I do. One thing I would like to see is an iPad app that I could take to court with me. I definitely battled with the idea of using a software that had been on the market longer than Houdini, but Im glad I stuck with my decision. There have been numerous times when Ive needed to call customer service, and believe it or not, a real live person picks up the phone, and they answer every question you might have (even if it's ridiculous). I have to say, as someone who started a law practice right out of school, Houdiniesq definitely made certain aspects of running this type of business easier. I have recommended this product to my colleugues, and will continue doing so.

Confusing interface but cost effective

Kommentare: It works but it could be more user friendly.

Vorteile:

I like that the program is free for solo practitioners

Nachteile:

It’s confusing to use and also runs quite slowly.

ABRAHAM KLEINMAN

Kommentare: HIGHLY RECCOMENDED

Vorteile:

PRACTICE MANAGEMENT WITHOUT THE MANAGEMENT

Nachteile:

DOES NOT YET HAVE ITS OWN WORD PROCESSOR BUT DOES LINK TO MICROSOFT WORD.

A Fairly Intuitive System

Kommentare: I switched to HoudiniESQ from PCLaw after getting tired of constantly having to pay for Lexis Nexis's "Annual Maintenance Plan" to get any technical support. The cost was really adding up and the product was not that user friendly. I spent hours researching the best systems that would also function with my Mac and settled on HoudiniESQ for its ease of use and fully integrated workspace. I love that it has all the features I need, with the exception of business accounting, in one program. I have had some difficulty relating to emails with attachments (the receiver cannot always see the actual attachment, even though it is clearly attached on my end, and sometimes I cannot open attachments from senders). Other than fixing that problem, the only thing that would truly make the system better is to have fully functioning accounting as part of the program so that I can track all of my non-client business expenses within the same program instead of needing to use quickbooks.

Waist of Time

Kommentare: I am a solo practitioner licensed since 2013. I downloaded HoudiniESQ and began inputting client info and documents into the system. I found it to be unwieldy, and duplicative of things I am already using like contacts, reminders, and such. Perhaps this product will work great for someone who has the time to work with it for several months or can hire someone to do the initial slog of data entry but you still have to integrate its systems into your work flow. For me I just didn't have the time to make this work and am really happy with the basic stuff I was using before.

Great product

Kommentare: This is a great product! I tried a few others before I downloaded HoudiniESQ and found HoudiniESQ to be very user friendly and efficient. My accounting and overall practice management have been positively impacted by this product.
I have the version for a solo practitioner. I am unsure if the version I use ( being a web-based) causes some delay when entering data.
It would also be great to be able to start typing into the space of a 'drop-down' box and have the item(s) with the initial alphabet(s) typed, show up rather than have to go through the list in the 'drop-down' box and choose the item.

A wonderful service for the solo

Kommentare: HoudiniEsq is a quality product that works well for a solo. The clients enjoy the updates and the back door access, and it saves a lot of time one would usually spend typing updates or in client meetings. This is particularly useful when there are billing questions. The linked calendaring has helped organize my office so that tasks are more likely to be done on time.
The biggest downfall is that there is a lot of data input and that takes time, particularly when you do not know the limits or uses of the system very well. Switching between one view and another seems to cause double entries.
It would be helpful to be able to speak notes into the system like you can on an iPad. It would also be helpful if there was a smaller, lighter version for syncing on the iPad/phone.

Better than some. I still prefer Credenza Software, not supported anymore.

Kommentare: streamlined billing and case management.

Vorteile:

I like the integration into outlook. I also like the fact that documents are automatically spooled into the case mapping.

Nachteile:

I don't like having to individually select events and make them billable. I'd rather be able to mass associate that. Also, I don't like that events calendar on my google calendar after the fact. I would rather they work internally on the software.

Great Product

Kommentare: I have used several law firm practice management programs. For a solo practice, each one has significant deficiencies. Most are glossy and look good from the surface. Their sales departments will offer demos, but not actual use of the program. Basically because the program doesn't really do what you need it to do. They are difficult to setup and use, or require an IT department to run. A little snag and you are down for a day talking to their tech support in the Philippines.
Houdini is different, you can actually use the program before you buy, and tech support is right their to help you navigate through the setup and operation. Houdini Esq. by far solves many of the issues that a solo practice requires.

Perfect for solos

Kommentare: Houdini is a feature rich product that cannot be beat for the solo practitioner. It has all the bells and whistles you could want, with extensive customization possibilities. Moreover, the price is perfect: free. Although the learning curve might be steeper than you wish if you are not going to use all of its features, it will be well worth it for whatever features you wish. I am still learning new things after two months of use. Even if you are a Mac user, the software is easy to use and highly functional because it uses your web browser to run. It has a few issues, but they seem so far to be quite minor. Updates seem to come out quite regularly as well.