Filing-grade
The standard a research result must meet before it can go into a court filing: the proposition that does the legal work, surfaced with the correct stance, at the correct procedural stage, with confirmed good-law status, and currently citable in the forum.
First used in What a Filing-Grade Benchmark Must Measure
The term separates two kinds of correctness. Verified means a citation exists and is accurate. Filing-grade means the cited proposition is also still controlling, favors the right side, was decided at the right stage, and can be cited in this forum today.
A real, verified, on-point case that was reversed last month, binds a different court, or decided the issue at summary judgment when the motion is at the pleading stage is not a weaker answer. It is an unusable answer that looks identical to a winning one.
The Institute's benchmark work treats these constraints as multiplicative: a single answer must clear all of them at once. That is why a system can avoid fabrication entirely and still fall short. Not fabricating is not the same as being filing-grade.
Related terms
Related frameworks
The Proposition-Usability Model
A cited proposition is usable only when it is still valid, governs in the forum and procedural posture, helps the represented party, and has not already been rejected in the jurisdiction.
Posture Mismatch Taxonomy
A citation can be real, accurate, good law and on point and still be wrong, because the proposition it is offered for depends on a standard, record, burden or forum different from the motion's; element definitions and substantive rules usually carry across stages, sufficiency holdings do not.