There’s always something to howl about.

Hiring a new employee. When your personal and business lives coincide.

I’ve written here before about my experiences with web marketing. In general, it’s been a resounding success. But getting 90 to 95 percent of my clients from the web puts a lot of my eggs in one basket. Sure, it’s a pretty diverse basket – the various search engines – Google, Bing, Yahoo, the various legal-reference websites, Facebook, YouTube – are unlikely all to collapse at once.

But I’d like to be diversified. Fortunately the past year means I can add an employee. I’ve thought about the kind of employee: an attorney to handle additional case load? a legal assistant who can do basic administrative work and keep my Quickbooks?

Ultimately, I needed to think about what I’d ideally want. I’d ideally want someone who can be great on the phone. So much of being hired depends on the front-line person who can answer the phone in a welcoming manner, sort calls and provide basic information, and – this is key – identify the callers who need to speak to the lawyer. A great front-line person is precious. A lousy front-line person can actively drive away potential clients.

I also wanted someone who can appear in court alongside me, deal with paralegal issues, and handle filings. That paralegal work – keeping calendars, making sure clients show up for court dates, dealing with other lawyers’ and prosecutors’ requests and inquiries – is time consuming, but crucial.

Ideally, though, I wanted someone who could help me grow the business. Someone who could help me reach beyond the web. Someone who could help me grow my local referral network. Someone who could think about new avenues for expansion (adding new practice areas? how about consulting with other lawyers or professionals about how to grow their businesses? how about hosting seminars gear toward recent grads or lawyers about how to take advantage of the web and social networking?)

To find that person would be something special. But I was lucky enough to do so.

My wife – who is currently a senior consultant with a multinational corporation – has decided to take a part-time role at her company and join me. We’ve been talking about this for a month now, and what it would mean for the business (about which I’m confident of success) and about how it will affect our relationship (I think we’ll adjust).

But I’m very excited. Already in her first week – working in the evenings – she’s booked about $6,000 worth of business. I’ll let you know how it goes!

In other news, I’ve always been pretty skeptical about out-of-the-box web-hosting packages, especially those designed for lawyers. Various legal information networks have solutions for lawyers which allows them to pay a monthly fee and have a “customized” website created for them. These websites typically look the same, such that when I’m looking at a lawyer’s website produced by one of these companies, I can usually identify which company made it.

But when LexisNexis launched it’s LexisNexis Marketing Makeover for small firms and solo practitioners, I thought, what the heck. And so I submitted an entry, and lo’ and behold, was selected as one of five finalist firms out of hundreds? thousands? of entries nationally. I’ve been interviewed by a member of the LexisNexis team via Skype, and expect them to choose a Grand Prize winner in the next couple of weeks. If I win, I get a trip to NYC! And, of course, an estimated $50,000 in marketing help, which isn’t too shabby, for my Raleigh criminal lawyer website.