Overriding Questionnaire Wording

Questionnaire overrides let your court reword the questions that petitioners answer when they prepare a case, without changing how the questionnaire works. You can rephrase a question, soften an instruction, or use your county’s preferred terminology, and petitioners see your wording instead of the standard LegalAtoms text.

An override is a wording layer that sits on top of a shared questionnaire. It only changes the text people read. It does not change which questions appear, how answers are used, how documents are filled in, or the order of the flow. If you remove an override later, the standard wording simply returns.

Finding the editor

Open Questionnaire Overrides from the left navigation menu in your dashboard.

The start screen explains a few terms you’ll see throughout the editor:

• Your override is the wording you write by hand.
• Auto-translated wording is created for you: when you write an English override, the system can automatically translate it into the other languages your questionnaire serves.
• Attached languages are the languages your override needs to cover so that petitioners are never shown English unexpectedly.
• Publishes live means saving a change updates the petitioner-facing questionnaire right away.

Starting an override

Use one of the two menus at the top of the page:

• Your overrides reopens a form you’ve already customized.
• Start a new override lets you pick a form you haven’t customized yet. The list shows the questionnaires available to your court.

After you choose a form, the editor opens. At the top you’ll see the form name, a Plan selector, a Language selector, and an Auto-translate switch. A reminder banner notes that saving any field publishes it to petitioners immediately.

Choosing which questions to reword

A form can contain many questions, so the editor starts empty. Choose Add question and search for the question you want to change. The question is brought into the editor so you can reword it. Any question that already has an override appears here automatically the next time you open the form.

You only need to add the questions you actually want to change. Everything you don’t touch keeps its standard wording.

Rewording a field

Each question shows its editable parts, such as its title (the question itself), its description (extra explanation), and any answer options. For every part you see two columns side by side:

• Shared base is the standard wording. This is locked and shown for reference.
• Your override is an empty box where you type your replacement wording.

To customize a field:

1. Type your wording in the Your override box. (If you’d like to start from the standard text and adjust it, use the small copy button on the shared base box to copy it across.)
2. While you’re typing, the field shows Unsaved change, so nothing is live yet.
3. Choose Save to publish your wording to petitioners.

After saving, the field is marked Saved live with the time it was published. You can come back and:

• Revert discards an edit you haven’t saved yet and returns to the last saved wording.
• Clear removes a saved override entirely, so the field goes back to the standard shared wording.

There are length limits on each field (short fields such as titles and option labels allow up to 500 characters; longer explanations allow up to 10,000). If you go over, the field tells you and the Save button stays disabled until you trim it.

Previewing before you publish

Because saving publishes immediately, it’s worth previewing first. Choose Preview on any question to open the Petitioner Preview panel. It shows exactly how the question will read to a petitioner, with your wording applied.

When the preview includes wording you haven’t saved yet, it’s labelled Reflects unsaved edits so you can check your change before it goes live. The panel also lists your Pending changes, which are the edits you’ve made but not yet published, and lets you Save live or Revert each one from there.

Languages and automatic translation

If your questionnaire serves more than one language, the Language selector at the top lets you switch between them. English is the starting point for translation:

• When you save an English override and Auto-translate is on, the system translates your new wording into the other languages your form serves. These are shown as Auto-translated.
• Wording you type by hand in any language is marked Custom entry. Automatic translation never overwrites your hand-written wording.

If you change your English wording but the translations haven’t caught up yet, the older translations are marked Stale translation, and petitioners still see the previous translation until a new one is ready. You can leave auto-translate on to keep translations current automatically, or use Re-translate stale languages (in the More actions menu) to refresh them on demand.

The Auto-translate switch reflects your account’s default and can be turned off if you prefer to manage every language’s wording by hand.

Plans (advanced)

Most courts only need the Default (all plans) wording, which applies everywhere. If your court runs more than one plan, you can use the Plan selector to write wording that applies to a single plan only. Plan-specific wording overlays your default wording: any field you leave blank for a plan falls back to your default wording, and then to the standard shared text.

Removing an override

You can undo your customizations at two levels:

• Clear an individual field to return just that field to its standard wording.
• Delete override (in the More actions menu) to remove all of your customizations for the whole form at once.

When every override on a form is removed, petitioners see the standard wording again, exactly as if you had never customized it.

Things to keep in mind

• Saving is live. Each Save publishes immediately to petitioners. Preview first when you’re unsure.
• Dynamic fields. Some questions automatically fill in details from a petitioner’s earlier answers. These are flagged with a Dynamic field note. If you override one, your fixed wording replaces the automatic part as well, so only override it if you intend to.
• Formatting may be adjusted. For safety, certain formatting is removed from saved wording. If anything was changed, the field shows a Formatting removed note so you can review it.
• No active plans. If your court doesn’t have an active plan using a form yet, you can still write and save overrides, but petitioners won’t see them until that plan is active. The editor warns you when this is the case.
• Editing temporarily unavailable. Occasionally editing may be paused for maintenance. You can still review your overrides during that time; saving resumes once it’s available again.