Case Study: Erie County Department of Law achieves greater efficiency and automated reporting with Thomson Reuters Elite's ProLaw

Running County Government Like a Business With Prolaw

The Erie County Department of Law in Buffalo, NY — a 16‑attorney, 25‑person office — faced rising workloads and shrinking staff as the county pushed to “run government like a business” using Lean Six Sigma. Their legacy case-management tools plus Quicken lacked consistent workflows, advanced reporting and easy customization, so leadership sought a single technology to standardize processes, eliminate manual reporting steps and improve productivity without outside development.

They implemented ProLaw, a unified case/matter, timekeeping, billing and accounting platform that centralizes documents, integrates with Outlook and Adobe, automates document generation and simplifies time entry and billing. The result was faster file retrieval, accurate staff time tracking, streamlined inter-department invoicing, instant automated reports for the Risk Retention Fund, reduced duplication and administrative steps — benefits that have drawn interest in expanding ProLaw across other county departments.

Erie County Department of Law

Kristin Klein Wheaton

First Assistant County Attorney