A great tool for the small and mid-sized law firm
FileMaker® Pro database software is a great tool for the small firm, thanks largely to its (very healthy) split personality.
On the one hand, it's as easy to use as a spreadsheet. On the other hand, it's got professional development capabilities that make it a platform for commercial software products.
On the one hand, it's a great desktop database tool for the single user. On the other hand, it's aimed at workgroups, with support for sharing databases peer-to-peer, using a server, and over the internet.
On the one hand, it runs on a Mac. On the other hand, it runs on Windows. And (on both hands) it lets Windows users and Mac users share the same database.
How I got started with FileMaker Pro
You've probably noticed that we've based our commercial product, the qd documents application, on FileMaker Pro. That's testimony to its high-end capabilities -- it's a professional development tool. We used it to build a robust, feature-rich application that's cross-platform and networkable.
However, we didn't start using FileMaker Pro because we expected to buid a commercial product. On the contrary, my background is in traditional programming languages, going back as far as Fortran, and when I first started using FileMaker Pro, I was writing my "serious" software in Objective-C and the Cocoa framework.
But at the same time, I was doing some work with a charitable organization, and I started using FileMaker to do some simple work for them. That led me to get a copy of the software for my own use, and before long I was using it for simple stuff -- basically, I used it instead of a spreadsheet, because it was just as easy to use as Excel, but it offered me more power.
How I got serious about FileMaker Pro
Then a client law firm asked me to analyze a big chunk of litigation data from one of the firm's clients. The data came from backup tapes of a no-longer-used relational database, but I got the data as a huge file of delimited text. This was historic data that hadn't been used for a decade or more and no one knew how to interpret it.
I popped that data into FileMaker Pro, just to take a look at it. It was an easy way for me to display, sort, filter, and review the data without doing any programming. Until I knew what I had, I didn't want to do much work with it.
Then I started manipulating the data -- it was in FileMaker Pro already, and FileMaker Pro gave me easy tools for that.
Before long, without intending to, I had done a lot of analysis. I finally realized that FileMaker Pro had all the tools I needed for the project, so instead of using it to just "take a quick look" at the data, I used it for the entire project. I ended up producing reports, analyses, and a restructured data set for the law firm to use internally for the case.
From that point on, I was using FileMaker Pro regularly to create quick applications -- when I needed to develop something quick and dirty with a lot of power.
Then I started developing our internal applications in FileMaker -- applications for tracking expenses, billing time, and managing relationships with clients and prospects. Finally, probably a year or so later, I began taking FileMaker Pro seriously as a platform for commercial development.
How you can get started with FileMaker Pro
Here's what's especially interesting and powerful about FileMaker Pro: Getting started is easy -- it's no harder than a spreadsheet application. But then you keep peeling off layers of power, each time you need to do something more powerful, you expand your skills and add that new technique.
In future tips, I'll show you how to get started with FileMaker.
For now, however, let me just give you some handy links:
- You can get more information about FileMaker Pro at the FileMaker web site. This link takes you to the product page for FileMaker Pro rather than to the FileMaker home page.
- You can request a trial copy here. The trial lets you play around with FileMaker Pro for thirty days.
- (Of course, FileMaker Pro is bundled with our qd documents software, so if you've bought our software, you already own FileMaker Pro)
And here are some books you might find useful if you want to get serious:
- FileMaker Pro 10: The Missing Manual. The Missing Manual series has a good reputation for beginner-level books.
- FileMaker Pro 10 Bible. This one is serious -- not a beginner's book, but a good place to go when you've mastered the basics.
- FileMaker Training Series. At $99, this one's a little pricey, but it's comprehensive, and it includes sample materials.
