Legal Trends Network is a free user-driven resource and collaborative exchange for lawyers, judges, law professors, and social and restorative justice professionals.   The website promotes lawyers as leaders and focuses on alternative modalities in dispute resolution and therapeutic processes in the practice of justice.  Legal Trends is content-rich and offers many services for legal professionals.
 
Legal Trends provides a forum to share articles, news, and other information, with resources covering: 

• Social Justice  
• Alternative Dispute Resolution
• Collaborative and Cooperative Law
• Transformational Mediation
• Problem Solving Courts
• Therapeutic Jurisprudence
• Technology in the Courtroom
• Restorative Justice
• Criminal and Prison Reform  

Other topics covered include sections on humanizing legal education, law practice management and components centered on lawyer satisfaction and well-being. The site is organized so that each topic has its own resource page as a starting point for individuals interested in specific disciplines.
 
"Legal Trends needed to be accessible to lawyers, judges, academicians and multidisciplinary professionals all over the globe, making subscription memberships impractical," says Gina Drew, CEO of Legal Trends Network. "We've put a lot of focus into building a friendly user-interface, in a professional format. We are a hands-on company and are available to assist members and encourage feedback for making improvements to our site."
 
A Niche Professional Network
 
In September, Legal Trends launched a new social network to facilitate interactivity and exchange of ideas between the professionals the site supports. 

Drew says, "I became excited that lawyers are using social networks to form connections within their disciplines and cultures. But those connections are spread across many different, broad-spectrum social networking sites, and there has been minimal cross-over conducive to conversation or collaboration between groups. Professional associations, while effectively promoting their membership, offer very little networking between their members online."  
 
Legal Trends is designed to meet this challenge by providing a useful niche network for legal and social justice professionals. "The collaborative resource component makes this network different from others in that it offers more than a popularity contest."
 
At Legal Trends like-minded lawyers can now form and join groups where they can engage in discussion, collaborate on articles, broadcast email messages to their group members, and maintain group event calendars, among other common functionalities.  "The challenge, of course, is helping lawyers to understand how this type of networking can be of benefit to their practices," Drew added.
 
The Legal Trends social network will provide services to professional organizations and organic groups alike. Ms. Drew adds, "We hope to see this forum facilitate discussion and inspire mainstream lawyers to add new conflict resolution tools to their kits, while bridging the gap between legal academicians, judges and practitioners."  
 
TrendSetters and Moderators
 
The website spotlights legal professionals who have made great contributions to the profession in their fields.  TrendSetter profiles appear on the front page of Legal Trends as well as on the category pages relative to that individual's expertise.  Members and visitors are encouraged to recommend people making a difference in the practice of law for inclusion in this forum.
 
Legal Trends is also interested in developing Moderator support for the topics and categories covered on the site.  Moderator profiles will be highlighted for whatever period of time the individual desires to participate.  Moderators would be experts in their fields and would help direct the Legal Trends staff in providing the best information possible for the benefit of their peer members.
 
Getting Started
 
It's easy to create a free user account at Legal Trends.  Creating an account is recommended because your profile can contain almost any information you would like, including their blog feeds, and links to purchase services, books, products produced by the member and links back to your websites.  Content is freely accessible without an account, but only account owners can publish articles, submit news stories, add events, and create blogs, groups, directory listings and commentary.