# Suit-readiness scoring > How Otto scores a litigation-track account out of 100 from six weighted factors, and why a perfect score is a triage signal rather than permission to file. - Source: https://ottoforfirms.com/platform/suit-readiness/ - Publisher: Otto — https://ottoforfirms.com - Updated: 2026-09-01 [The Otto platform](https://ottoforfirms.com/platform/) Suit-readiness scoring gives every litigation-track account a 0-100 number from six weighted factors: chain of title, account statements and signed application at twenty points each, an attorney review on file at twenty, the limitations clock at ten, and the absence of a collection hold at ten. ## Key facts - Six factors, one hundred points: three documents at twenty each, attorney review at twenty, limitations clock at ten, no active hold at ten. - The limitations factor scores zero when fewer than ninety days remain, not only when the date has already passed. - An account past its limitations date is badged TIME-BARRED wherever it appears, and the detail line says filing is prohibited rather than merely inadvisable. - A score is a triage signal. The thing that actually stops a filing is the documentation gate, which is separate, binary, and per-client. - Accounts scoring ninety or above are addressable as a set — the command palette surfaces ready-to-file and short-limitations views as queries over the scoring function. - Limitations dates come from a per-account field and a per-jurisdiction table covering four configured states. There is no fifty-state limitations table in the engine. ## How is the score calculated? As arithmetic over fields, with no model involved. Three documents are each worth twenty points: chain of title, account statements, and the signed application — the account-level media the competent-and-reliable-evidence standard is usually expressed in terms of. An attorney review event on the file is worth twenty. The limitations clock is worth ten, awarded only when more than ninety days remain. The absence of a collection hold is worth ten. Each factor carries a detail line explaining why it scored what it scored — which document is missing, who reviewed the file and when, how many days are left, and which hold is on. ## Is a score of one hundred permission to file? No, and keeping those two things apart is the point of having both. The score is advisory: it ranks a queue so that the work goes where the gap is. The gate is dispositive: it evaluates the client's own documentation rule and refuses the filing action outright when the required media is not attached or no attorney review is on file. A firm can perfectly reasonably decide not to file a hundred-scoring account. A firm cannot use Otto to file a gated one without the gate recording that it was blocked. ## What happens when the limitations clock is short? The scoring drops the ten points at ninety days, not at zero, so a short clock reads as a risk rather than as a pass and the account surfaces while there is still time to do something about it. The account list badges remaining days with escalating severity as the date approaches, and an account past its date is badged TIME-BARRED and the readiness detail says filing is prohibited. The suit path for such an account is meant to be closed rather than merely discouraged. ## Where do the limitations dates come from? Two places. Each account carries the date its limitations clock runs from and the basis for it — last payment or charge-off — plus a computed expiry, so the countdown is per account rather than per state. Behind that sits the jurisdiction configuration, which records written and oral limitations periods for the four configured states. A client may also impose a stricter period than the state's by contract, and the account model carries a field for that override. What does not exist is a fifty-state limitations table inside the engine; Otto publishes a separate public reference for limitations periods and that reference publishes nothing an attorney has not signed off. ## What does the score not tell you? Whether the claim is good. It counts artifacts and reads two dates. It has no view on whether the bill of sale actually names this account, whether the statements support the balance claimed, whether the attorney review was meaningful rather than clicked, or whether suing this consumer is a sensible commercial decision. Those are the judgments the score exists to make room for by removing the clerical part, and a firm that treats a green number as a filing decision has substituted a checklist for the judgment the checklist was supposed to free up. ## Related - [IOLTA trust accounting and three-way reconciliation](https://ottoforfirms.com/platform/trust-accounting/) — How Otto holds client funds against the case they belong to, reconciles bank statement to book balance to client ledgers, and handles NSF and remittance. - [Exchange — the placement file gateway](https://ottoforfirms.com/platform/data-exchange/) — How Otto takes client placement files in, validates field identity before loading, quarantines bad files whole, and returns events in each client's own codes. - [The rules engine — blocking, not logging](https://ottoforfirms.com/platform/enforcement/) — How Otto's rules engine refuses an action before it happens: the five checks before a call, the documentation gate before suit, and what an override costs. ## About Otto These pages describe what Otto does. The quickest way to judge them is against your own files. - [Book a walkthrough](https://ottoforfirms.com/contact/) - [See what it costs](https://ottoforfirms.com/pricing/) --- This page describes Otto, not the law, and is not legal advice. Otto applies rules that have been written down correctly; it does not warrant that using it results in compliance with any statute, regulation or contract. Where a rule is named here, confirm it against the primary source and your own counsel before relying on it.