Generating a court form

Cedent can fill California family-law court forms straight from a matter’s facts, so you start from a mostly-complete draft instead of a blank PDF. It fills what it can stand behind, gathers what it can from the matter’s documents, and leaves the rest for you to complete. Nothing is filed — you review, finish, and finalize.

Forms Cedent can fill

From the Generate button at the top of a matter, choose Form to open the picker. Today’s set is the preliminary declaration-of-disclosure packet:

FL-150 — Income & expense declaration. Wages, self-employment, and the monthly-expense schedule.
FL-142 — Schedule of assets & debts. Real property, accounts, vehicles, loans, and cards.
RA-010 — Notice of remote appearance. The caption and parties fill from your facts; you add the hearing details.

The Generate menu produces work product from a matter (a form today; letters and briefs are coming). It sits next to + New, which adds records to a matter (a task, a deadline, a time entry).

How a form gets filled

When you pick a form, Cedent creates a draft and starts filling it. Different parts of a form come from different places:

The caption — the attorney and firm block — fills from your firm and profile settings, the same on every form.
The parties, case number, and county fill from the matter’s facts right away.
Financial and case-specific fields are gathered from the matter’s documents while you review. You’ll see a “Gathering…” note and fields that fill in as Cedent finds them.
Selections and details Cedent can’t source — checkboxes, hearing dates, service facts — are left for you to complete. Cedent surfaces them as blank fields rather than guessing.
Signatures are never filled. The signature line is signed off-platform. The signing date fills automatically; the printed name is yours to type.

Cedent does not invent values for a court filing. If it doesn’t have a fact, the field stays empty and waits for you — see best practices.

Reviewing the form

The form opens in a review panel with two views — Fields and Preview — and a summary at the top: “I filled 24 of 40 fields … from this matter’s facts,” with a bar showing how many are filled, unverified, or still missing.

Fields are organized into collapsible sections so a long form stays manageable. Sections are open by default; a few long or optional blocks (like RA-010’s declaration of notice) start collapsed. Each section header shows how many of its fields are filled, and you can fold away the parts you’re done with.

Every field carries a status:

Filled — a value is in place.
Unverified — filled, but from something Cedent is less sure of. Worth a look.
Gathering… — Cedent is still looking for this one.
Needs data — empty; complete it yourself.
Conflict — review — the underlying fact has a pending conflict to resolve.

Editing a field

Click a field to edit it. What happens when you save depends on the field:

Fact-backed fields (a party name, an income figure) save to the fact-base — the value then pre-fills every form and appears on the matter’s Facts. Fix it once, and it’s fixed everywhere.
Form-only fields (a checkbox, a hearing time) save to this form only and leave the fact-base unchanged.

Cedent tells you which happened each time you save.

Checkboxes and “check one” selections

Checkboxes toggle on and off. Where a form says check one — for example RA-010’s “throughout the case” vs. “at the proceeding below,” or video vs. audio — checking one option clears the other, so the finished form can’t contradict itself. Groups like these count as incomplete until you make a selection, even though each individual box is optional.

Previewing and finalizing

Switch to Preview (or Preview PDF) to see the filled form. From there you can Open in new tab, Download a working copy, or choose Mark final & save.

Marking a form final produces a flattened, locked PDF and tags the form Final. Until then it’s a draft — saved automatically, and you can reopen it from the picker or the Drafts queue to keep editing. A draft never files itself; finalizing is a step you take, and filing with the court is still yours to do.

Common questions

Where do the numbers come from? From the matter’s facts and documents — the same source you can see on the Synopsis and Facts. Cedent doesn’t make up figures for a court form.

A required field is blank. Can I still finalize? Yes — Cedent won’t block you, because sometimes you’re finalizing a partial form on purpose. The summary flags what’s still missing so the choice is yours, not a surprise. Fill the gaps before you file.

I fixed a name on one form. Do I have to fix it on the others? No. Editing a fact-backed field saves to the fact-base, so every other form and the matter’s Facts pick up the corrected value.