About Us:The Magazine

Welcome! Our friend, Gayatri Erlandson of http://www.livingnewstories.com talks about her site as a "Communiversity" and we aspire to be that and more. We're launching on August 1, 2008 - or as close thereto as we can. If you're arriving before that, hold onto your hat! It could be a wild ride. (Kim has already crashed the site three times this week and some really strange formatting issues have arisen.) Some of what you will read below is aspirational. Some is so close to launching, it might be real before you read this - or the next time you refresh.

Content and Features:

CuttingEdgeLaw.com provides a community gathering place for sharing experiences, ideas, and concepts that are arising within a movement in the law. It responds to the urgent need to report on these positive innovations in law. On our pages, lawyers who are pioneers know that they are not alone, that others are hearing the call to positive action and using their legal training to make the world a better place. They're expanding the time-revered roles of lawyers in creative and non-traditional ways that are more satisfying and contribute to making a difference in the world - while improving career satisfaction and life balance. We will give much-deserved attention to the pioneers in the movement, those brave souls who have ventured into jungles and snakepits and dared to be courageous in the face of possibly being weird.

Our content will also educate mainstream lawyers about new concepts. It will share tools to more fully integrate transformative and comprehensive law concepts into day to day legal practice. It will provide the space for critical examination of the issues confronting the lawyers who are stepping out and trying the new approaches, a community where ideas can be discussed and methods explored.

CuttingEdgeLaw.com is unlike the traditional legal trade magazines. Rather than focusing on the latest litigation victories and defeats, we will focus on the roles of lawyers as healers, peacemakers, problem-solvers, and champions for justice. We aren’t looking for the “Super Lawyers” who made $6MM on moving money between two behemoth corporations over a technicality but rather the lawyer who healed a conflict between two parents in a custody dispute or a lawyer who helped a murderer come face to face with the family of his victim and give them the gift of a sincere apology. We’re here to support the explorations and promote the most workable and inspiring options for the legal system. Imagine the legal system as a resource for creating whole, vibrant, loving communities? If we transform our practices, how do we reach clients? How do we earn a living on healing and peace-making when the world is used to viewing lawyers as a polarizing force?

Besides our textual content, we have multimedia content. Videos and audio recordings of leaders sharing their heroes journeys and expertise. We have our own YouTube channel and we're scouring the web for other top notch multimedia content by and for lawyers.

CuttingEdgeLaw.com is meant as a clearinghouse for information about everyone who is doing work in the movement. Certain leaders will be featured as our "Allies" who are working to promote a new paradigm of law practice. All our registered members will appear in a directory where they can find each other and where potential clients looking for a more humanistic or holistic approach can find professionals to help them.

Kim will be blogging and hopes to enroll others in doing so. She has room for up to 15 bloggers on specific topics - interested?

We're not a one-way conversation. We don't plan to just give you information but to hear from you as well. Comments will be available on most articles (if you are a registered user). For registered users, we're also planning some "Juicy Conversations" about topics of interest to our readers. (Want to moderate a certain conversation?)

Many of you may remember that Renaissance Lawyer Society used to publish The Cable, a long list of events in the movement. The Cable was RLS's most popular offering, especially its job postings. CuttingEdgeLaw.com will have a calendar that we will populate and to which YOU too can add events. We're working on issues like geographic sorting but the calendar will be up in some format soon. We're creating a separate job posting board as well.

We're in discussion with some MCLE providers about offering content that is focused on our audience. We're hoping to have that up by the end of the summer so you can get your Continuing Ed hours here before the end of the year.

At some point in the near future, we plan to have products and services. We're talking to some coaches about being our featured coaches (volunteers?), some sellers about offering their products through us, and we're becoming affiliates of some folks you really want to know about. Since most of us have a book addiction, you can be sure that we're creating a reading list and you will be able to buy all your books through us soon.