HotDocs; Careful before you start
November 18, 2018

HotDocs; Careful before you start

Jason Shindler | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with HotDocs

HotDocs is used by most of the paralegals in the organization to draft estate planning documents for our clients. It allows users to complete an "interview" and then download draft estate planning documents based on the interview. They then edit the documents in Microsoft Word and then present them to the clients.
  • Allows users to complete an interview
  • Allows users to download draft documents
  • Allows programmers to create the interview and document templates.
  • Licensing: the company seems intent on milking this product for as much as they can. I receive monthly sales phone calls, yet support calls are not helpful.
  • We use the online "document services" product -- it occasionally has unexplained outages and support is not helpful.
  • The product has weird limitations that limit its utility -- the interview engine can only support certain types of data. Several programmers have expressed frustration to us about this.
  • Increased speed of document creation
  • Increased accuracy of document creation
  • Allowed users to transition from older Wordperfect templates.
I haven't evaluated other products. We are so used to HotDocs that it would be difficult for us to switch to something else. We continue to use HotDocs because switching cost is high once you have already started. Be careful before beginning to use this program, as it is hard to breakaway.
It is well suited for a "medium" user -- it is too hard to set up for a typical paralegal and too limited for someone with advanced and complicated needs. If you are the "Goldilocks" user, it is just right. If you are on either end, there could be other programs that might be a better fit.