RainMaker to “Pay Forward” $1,000,000 in Economic Assistance to Law Firms

On March 17, 2009, RainMaker Software announced a $1,000,000 Economic Assistance Package to help law firms invest in technology to better run their businesses. In order to qualify for this assistance, a firm must agree to “pay forward” an equivalent benefit in their local community. Examples might include identifying new pro-bono initiatives, assisting laid-off workers, assisting families dealing with mortgage foreclosures, or new ways to participate in charitable organizations feeling the economic crunch.

RainMaker believes that now is the time for technology providers to take drastic steps to help pull our industry out of today’s economic perils. For many years, technology providers have claimed that our products and services helped law firms become more profitable or realize other benefits, and to some extent, we can all prove our cases. However, it is also clear that many firms lack the tools or training necessary to best manage their business, reduce internal costs, increase productivity, predict cash flow or improve service to their client. The problem many of us face is that, when law firms are busy, they have no incentive to make these changes, and when the economy softens, they can’t afford the investment.

Our Challenge to all Legal Market Vendors
RainMaker is inviting all Legal Market Vendors to follow our lead and join us in offering a substantial economic assistance to law firms under this program.

This assistance should be:
• open to all firms, both clients and non-clients within your targeted market
• an amount you can afford to provide based upon the size and health of your company
• transparently applied and in addition to all other competitive allowances or discounts you normally provide
• disclosed publicly or upon request to all clients or qualifying law firms that request this information
• contingent on law firms, in good faith, “paying forward” benefits in their community
• available either through the end of 2009 or until you have funded your assistance amount

No Free Lunch
You may ask why should we provide law firms with assistance and isn’t this just a publicity stunt? My response is that there is no free lunch. Most legal market vendors and law firms are being impacted by the current economic crisis. We all read the headlines where firms are laying off both attorneys and staff. This Economic Assistance package will provide firms an additional incentive to invest money today to improve their infrastructure for tomorrow. Participating vendors will be able to keep our people busy, and while we’ll make less money in the short term, in the long run, we’ll all be better off, as will the local communities that benefit from the “pay forward”. It is that simple.

Join Us
If you are interested in joining us in this effort, just let us know. We’d be happy to provide a link from our web site to yours. In addition, we are looking to set up an industry web site, showing law firms which vendors are participating under the terms of this assistance, with links back to their site. This site will provide no advertising or favoritism - it will be a common site for law firms to see where they might be able to take advantage of what we will all try to do and their requirement to “pay forward” the benefit. Even though we may compete for a slice of legal market technology spending, we are all in this together.

If you are interested in joining us in this effort just send us an email at assistance@rainmakerlegal.com. We are a small company, so maybe we can get others to partner with us to help spread the word.

About RainMaker Software, Inc.
RainMaker Software, Inc. provides progressive, proven and practical financial and practice management systems designed to help mid-to-large sized law firms effectively and profitably manage and grow their businesses. With more than 40 years of legal-specific development experience, RainMaker has consistently delivered stable and feature-rich, yet easy-to-use products. The company's premier RainMaker Platinum product line provides a comprehensive offering of useful features and functionality, along with a proprietary Business Intelligence toolset designed to extract decision-support data in practical formats for reporting and analysis, with no custom programming required. RainMaker takes a hands-on, customer-centric approach to evaluating and responding to firms' needs, and is dedicated to long-term client satisfaction. RainMaker is a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner. RainMaker is a wholly owned subsidiary of ASA International, Ltd. Additional information about RainMaker Software, Inc. and its products can be obtained by contacting the sales department by phone at 1.800.341.4012 x3413, via email at legalinfo@rainmakerlegal.com or by visiting the company website at http://www.rainmakerlegal.com.