There's been some raised eyebrows! It has been a subject of great debate here at the Network. Charging lawyers for monthly subscriptions to a magazine format website about lawyers and peacemaking seemed the path of least resistance on the road to financial success. The product is great. The math is sound. What could be more win-win (not an original phrase in this line of work) than that?

Last year I got invited by different people to join several social networking sites. It seemed worth investigating, but who had time? Still, I created the accounts and they remained relatively dormant. Then, for no reason I could determine, I received an invitation to connect from someone in California. From this person's profile, I followed a link to a page where the first post was from the wife of an attorney in Virginia, worried that the stress from her husband's job was causing his health to fail. I moved from there to connect with lawyers, ADR, TJ and RJ specialist all over the world through this social network.

I began to notice how lawyers were forming organic groups within their disciplines and cultures, but that, like corporate based organizations, there was very little cross-over, save conversation taking place amongst law students. This was intriguing.

As the idea for a professional social network for lawyers began to develop, it became apparent that there was no way to fairly set up a subscription system that was not prohibitive to some. Indeed, a conversation with a lawyer in Pakistan revealed that some lawyers there only earn the equivalent of $10 US per day. It was a stark departure from the relative affluence this profession enjoys here in the States. And we haven't discussed college students, new, public service and legal aid lawyers. Failure to consider these people didn't feel like an option.

Now our concept didn't seem so win-win anymore. It was hard to reconcile the thousands of dollars in cash and time we were spending developing this network without a suitable return income base. Still, the only choice we felt appropriate was to make this site available to everyone at no charge.

That decision behind us, it became apparent that the editor driven magazine format was not going to be workable, nor should it be. Who could be more qualified than the professionals practicing new trends in the law to mentor others towards a new way of considering conflict? The realization that only a user-driven, self-governing system would suffice hit hard and we started building.

The question of income being a burning one, we created a directory listing product which is for sale, and we gladly and thankfully accept donations. Please help us keep this site alive and make it thrive with your directory listing purchases and donations, both monetary and informational.

While directories are searchable by everyone who comes to the site, we are not encouraging traffic from the general public. This site is meant to be for lawyers, by lawyers and about lawyers. Networking is the game here and we will do our best to weed out traffic and submissions that are not in alignment with stated ideal.

One additional note you may wish to consider: This entire site was developed on the open-source content management platform, Drupal. Drupal's core framework is lightweight and portable, infinitely customizable and supported wholly by the brilliance of programmers working collaboratively to make things better for everyone. We thought this was quite complimentary to our stated purpose.

Please support Legal Trends Network by purchasing a standard or enhanced directory listing and by donating to this effort.

Thank you,

Gina Drew, LTN CEO