There is the merge function which creates or overrides a field. You can also update fields that are not at the root level of the tree.
import org.json4s._
import org.json4s.JsonDSL._
import org.json4s.jackson.JsonMethods._
object mergeJson extends App {
val json =
"""
|{
| "foo":1,
| "bar": {
| "foo": 2
| }
|}
|""".stripMargin
val ast = parse(json)
val updated = ast merge (("foo", 3) ~ ("bar", ("fnord", 5)))
println(pretty(updated))
// {
// "foo" : 3,
// "bar" : {
// "foo" : 2,
// "fnord" : 5
// }
// }
}