Every missed call could be a missed client.

No. You keep your existing number and forward it to your dedicated Houji line. Callers dial the same number they always have — Houji answers on your behalf. Nothing on your website, cards, or listings changes.

Most firms are set up in about 20 minutes. You have a short conversation with the onboarding assistant about your practice, pricing, and preferences — and if you paste your firm's website URL, Houji pre-fills most of the configuration automatically. You review everything before going live.

Yes — your practice areas, consultation and fee structure, scheduling links, intake process, office details, and the answers to your most common questions. Firms with multiple offices can configure each location's own hours, address, and phone, and Houji answers location questions correctly per office. You can refine her knowledge any time from the dashboard, every change is saved as a version, and you can roll back with one click.

Yes. Rename her, write your own business-hours and after-hours greetings, set her answering style — and choose her voice per language from a curated set, so your Spanish-language callers hear a voice picked for Spanish, not a default.

Answers immediately, 24/7 — never voicemail. She identifies who's calling (new client, existing client, opposing counsel, or a court/official call) and handles each the right way. Messages capture the caller's full name, phone number, and a clear summary of why they called — delivered by email the moment the call ends. Text notifications are coming soon.

Yes — carefully. A number that's called before gets a warm "have we spoken before?" welcome, but Houji never names a person or a matter based on the phone number alone, because a shared line may carry more than one caller. Only after a caller identifies themselves — and the name matches your records — does she draw on their prior calls as background. For a legal practice, that restraint is the feature.

Houji tells callers the office is closed, takes a complete message, and flags genuine emergencies for immediate attention — without waking you for every routine call. You define what counts as an emergency.

You set the triggers — a call from a court or clerk's office, an imminent filing deadline, or situations you define — and Houji alerts the right people immediately when one fires. On Pro plans, genuine emergencies can be routed live to your team, in your chosen order, until someone picks up.

Yes, when you turn transfers on. Callers can be connected to your office line, and on Pro plans to specific attorneys by name (up to 5). Each person sets their own transfer hours and preference — take live calls or messages only — and Houji sets caller expectations using each person's own callback policy rather than over-promising on anyone's behalf. With warm transfer on, you hear a private whisper first — who's calling and about what — and accept or decline before you're connected, while the caller just hears ringing.

The caller is never dumped to voicemail. Houji rejoins the call with full context — "Sorry about that, Jane didn't pick up. You mentioned the contract — should I take a message, or try the main line?" — and finishes the job. That works on every transfer, including urgent routing.

Yes — overflow mode rings your office first, for as long as you choose, and Houji answers only when nobody picks up. A backup for lunch hours, court days, and after hours — not a replacement for the human you already have.

Houji notes opposing parties mentioned in calls, and if a new caller's name matches a stored adverse party, you get an early heads-up email to review before booking. It's a heads-up, not clearance — always run your own conflict check — but it surfaces the connection before the consultation is on your calendar, not after.

Update her knowledge any time from your dashboard — just type what you want changed. Every update is versioned, so you can always roll back. Houji also analyzes your call log weekly and suggests fixes for gaps automatically: questions callers asked that she couldn't answer, recurring confusion, missed opportunities. Accepting a suggestion takes one click. And your configuration never changes behind your back — website re-syncs run only when you click Re-scan, and you review what changed before it applies.

Houji speaks 25 languages — English, Spanish, Mandarin, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Hindi, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Tamil, Bengali, Tagalog, Indonesian, Romanian, and Greek — and detects the caller's language automatically, switching mid-conversation with no trigger phrase. Solo includes English plus 1 bonus language; Pro includes English plus 3, with more at $20/month each; Enterprise includes all 25. On every plan, up to 3 languages besides English can be active at once — a limit of the real-time voice pipeline itself.

Yes, any time from your dashboard, as your client mix changes. Removed languages stop billing at the end of the current cycle — no partial-month surprises.

A separate Houji product for a different job: real-time interpretation between two people speaking different languages on the same call — a Spanish-speaking client and an English-speaking attorney, for example. From $49/month, standalone or as an add-on to any receptionist plan.

Spam comes with every answered line — and increases once a number reliably picks up. Houji recognizes known robocall scripts and hangs up on them automatically; they're clearly flagged as spam in your call log and never counted against your monthly minutes. You can also switch on call screening, which asks callers to press a key before connecting and stops virtually all automated calls. Detection learns from spam seen across the whole platform, so it keeps improving.

Solo and Pro start with a 7-day free trial. You'll receive an email before your trial ends; if you continue, your card is charged for the plan you selected on day 8. Cancel any time before then from your dashboard and you won't be charged. Enterprise plans skip the trial and are active immediately.

All three, from your dashboard, with no phone calls. Plan changes show you the exact prorated amount before you confirm. Taking a break? Pause for 30, 60, or 90 days at $5/month — your number and configuration stay reserved. Cancel any time.

Nothing dramatic. Overage is billed at $0.05 per minute past your plan (Solo 500, Pro 1,500, Enterprise unlimited) and appears on your next invoice — never a surprise charge mid-month. Spam calls are excluded automatically.

Yes. Add notification recipient seats at $10/month each (Solo up to 4 people total; Pro and Enterprise as many as you need). Pro and Enterprise firms can also add extra phone lines at $49/month per line — for a second office, or a dedicated language line: a caller who switches languages mid-call is moved across seamlessly, conversation intact.

Houji is a receptionist service, not an attorney-client communication channel. Elise always identifies herself as a virtual assistant, never claims to be human, never gives legal advice, and never implies that an attorney-client relationship has been formed — guardrails built into every configuration, designed with professional responsibility requirements in mind.

Call transcripts are stored on encrypted infrastructure, are never sold, and are never used to train AI models. You control retention: keep transcripts indefinitely (the default) or auto-delete after 30, 90, or 365 days — and you can permanently delete all call data yourself at any time from Account & Billing. Call data is removed from our active systems within 30 days if you cancel. Full details in our Privacy Policy.

No. Houji is built for any professional practice that can't afford to miss calls — medical, financial, real estate, consulting. Legal is our current focus, and it shows in the details.

Judgment. Houji understands legal terminology, urgency, and the difference between a court call and a new client inquiry — most call software was built for volume, Houji was designed for professional practice. It's flat monthly pricing instead of per-minute meters, self-serve setup in about 20 minutes with no setup fee, and it speaks 25 languages natively, with a live interpretation line available for real-time bilingual calls.