[30] Fillmore was the leading citizen in East Aurora, having successfully sought election to the New York State Assembly, and served in Albany for three one-year terms (1829 to 1831).[4] Fillmore's 1828 election contrasted the victories of the Jacksonian Democrats (soon the Democrats), who swept the general into the White House and their party to a majority in Albany and so Fillmore was in the minority in the Assembly.[31] He proved effective anyway by promoting legislation to provide court witnesses the option of taking a non-religious oath and, in 1830, abolishing imprisonment for debt.[12] By then much of Fillmore's legal practice was in Buffalo, and later that year he moved there with his family. He did not seek re-election in 1831.[30][32]
Fillmore was also successful as a lawyer. Buffalo was then rapidly expanding, recovering from British conflagration during the War of 1812, and becoming the western terminus of the Erie Canal. Court cases from outside Erie County began falling to Fillmore's lot, and he reached prominence as a lawyer in Buffalo before he moved there. He took his lifelong friend Nathan K. Hall as a law clerk in East Aurora. 