Elite API
Thomson Reuters Elite is finance and practice management software for law firms. It powers client and matter setup, time and expense capture, prebills/proformas, invoicing (including LEDES), collections, trust accounting, and reporting across offices and practices. For a tech company
What is Thomson Reuters Elite?
Elite is a suite of legal enterprise business management products—including 3E and ProLaw—that helps firms run finance, time & billing, and matter operations. It centralizes client/matter master data, rates and pricing, work-in-progress (WIP), proformas, invoices, receipts, trust, and reporting. Related modules include eBillingHub for LEDES/e-billing and MatterSphere for matter lifecycle and CRM.
Core product areas include:
- Client & Matter Management (intake, numbering, status, responsible/billing roles)
- Time & Expense Capture (WIP, validations, UTBMS codes, narratives)
- Billing & Invoicing (proformas/prebills, write-ups/downs, LEDES, approvals)
- Financials (AR/AP, GL, multi-currency, multi-office)
- Rates & Pricing (rate cards, alternative fee arrangements, fee caps, budgets)
- Trust Accounting (client trust ledgers, receipts, disbursements)
- Reporting & Analytics (WIP/AR, realization, profitability)
- Integrations (eBillingHub, MatterSphere, DMS like iManage)
Common data entities:
- Clients & Matters (client number, matter number, status, practice group)
- Timekeepers & Roles (responsible partner, billing attorney, originations)
- Time Entries & Expense Entries (date, hours/amount, UTBMS/LEDES codes, narratives)
- Rates & Rate Agreements (standard, client/matter-specific, AFA)
- Proformas/Prebills (draft bills, line edits, write-downs, approvals)
- Invoices (numbers, LEDES, e-billing status, payments)
- Trust Ledgers & Transactions (balances, receipts, disbursements)
- Budgets & Fee Caps (phases, amounts, thresholds)
- Users/Roles & Security (department, office, permissions)
The Elite Integration Challenge
Finance and billing teams depend on Elite daily, but turning portal-centric workflows into API-driven automation is hard:
- Complex master data: Client/matter numbering, multi-office/department segments, and user-defined fields require consistent mapping
- Billing lifecycle nuance: WIP validation rules, prebills, write-ups/downs, and multi-step approvals demand idempotent, auditable actions
- UTBMS/LEDES alignment: Phases/tasks/activity codes vary by client and must map cleanly for e-billing and realization analytics
- Authentication & SSO: Firm SSO/MFA and session lifecycles complicate headless automation
- Entitlements & ethics: Role-based access, matter security, and ethical walls must be respected across users and regions
- Asynchronous jobs: Prebill generation, LEDES exports, and batch updates run long and need status polling or webhooks
- Reconciliation & audit: Every change to WIP/AR or trust must be traceable and reversible with robust audit trails
How Supergood Creates Elite APIs
Supergood reverse-engineers authenticated browser flows and network interactions to deliver a resilient API endpoint layer for your Elite tenant.
- Handles username/password, SSO/OAuth, and MFA (SMS, email, TOTP) securely
- Maintains session continuity with automated refresh and change detection
- Normalizes client, matter, time, proforma, invoice, rate, and trust objects into consistent schemas
- Aligns with customer entitlements, matter security, and ethical walls for compliant access
- Supports high-volume operations (bulk time import, prebill generation) with polling or webhooks for long-running jobs
- Maps UTBMS/LEDES codes and client-specific rate rules with validation and clear error reporting
Getting Started
- Schedule Integration Assessment
Book a 30-minute session to confirm your modules (3E, ProLaw, eBillingHub), licensing, and authentication model.
- Supergood Builds and Validates Your API
We deliver a hardened Elite adapter tailored to your workflows, matter security, and UTBMS/LEDES rules.
- Deploy with Monitoring
Go live with continuous monitoring and automatic adjustments as Elite evolves.
Use Cases
iManage-Driven Workspace & Matter Sync
- Auto-create/update iManage workspaces from Elite matter data - Enrich documents with matter numbers, phase/task codes, and billing status - Display budgets, fee caps, and trust balances inside workspaces for fee earner awareness
Time Capture & Prebill Automation
- Push time from document/email activity or timers into Elite with validations - Generate prebills on schedule or on WIP thresholds; route for approval - Apply standard or client/matter-specific rates and UTBMS codes consistently
Budget vs. Actuals & Client Reporting
- Pull WIP/AR and budgets by phase to power dashboards - Alert teams when fee caps are close; trigger write-down recommendations - Export realized vs. standard rate delta for profitability analytics
E-Billing & Accruals Sync
- Retrieve invoice status and rejections for case/ticketing systems - Post accruals and monthly estimates to client portals - Attach supporting docs and narratives; track resubmission outcomes
Technical Specifications
Authentication
Username/password with MFA (SMS, email, TOTP) and SSO/OAuth where enabled; supports service accounts or customer-managed credentials
Response format
JSON with consistent resource schemas and pagination across modules
Rate limits
Tuned for enterprise throughput while honoring customer entitlements and usage controls
Session management
Automatic reauth and cookie/session rotation with health checks
Data freshness
Near real-time retrieval of matters, WIP, proformas, invoices, rates, and trust balances
Security
Encrypted transport, scoped tokens, and audit logging; respects Elite matter security and roles
Webhooks
Optional asynchronous delivery for long-running workflows (e.g., prebill generation, LEDES exports)
Latency
Sub-second responses for list/detail queries under normal load; prebill generation times reflect underlying platform behavior
Throughput
Designed for high-volume time entry ingestion and billing cycle synchronization
Reliability
Retry logic, backoff, and idempotency keys minimize duplicates and support at-least-once processing
Adaptation
Continuous monitoring for UI/API changes with rapid adapter updates
Frequently asked questions
Supergood supports workflows commonly used for legal finance and billing, including Client & Matter (master data), Time & Expense (WIP), Billing (proformas/prebills, approvals), Rates/Pricing, Invoicing (including LEDES via eBillingHub), and Reporting, subject to your licensing and entitlements. We scope coverage during integration assessment.
We can map Elite client/matter numbers and key fields to iManage workspaces, push time from workspace activity into Elite, and surface budgets/WIP inside workspaces. We respect matter security and ethical walls across systems and provide idempotent sync to avoid duplicates.
Yes. We validate UTBMS phases/tasks/activity codes, apply client/matter rate rules, and can export LEDES for eBillingHub or retrieve e-billing statuses back to your systems.
Yes. We support generating proformas, applying write-ups/downs, adding notes, and routing for approvals with immutable audit records. Long-running edits use jobs with polling or webhooks.
We support username/password + MFA (SMS, email, TOTP) and can operate behind SSO/OAuth when enabled. Sessions are refreshed automatically with secure challenge handling and monitoring for session expiry.