About Lainey
Lainey W. Francisco is a member of Jones Foster's Complex Litigation & Dispute Resolution and Land Use & Governmental practice groups. She handles real estate and business litigation in Florida state and federal courts and advises local governments, real estate developers, agricultural businesses, and private landowners on zoning, permitting, and land use matters in Palm Beach County, St. Lucie County, and throughout the Treasure Coast.
Lainey represents clients before local governments in rezonings, comprehensive plan amendments, site plan approvals, variances, special exceptions, and code enforcement matters. She also provides counsel to the Towns of Gulf Stream, Jupiter, Lake Park, and Palm Beach on planning and zoning, public records and Sunshine Law compliance, legislative and quasi-judicial proceedings, and other governmental matters. When disputes extend beyond the local process, she litigates constitutional property rights and development approval claims on behalf of both property owners and local governments, including in certiorari proceedings, appeals, and related litigation.
Her broader litigation practice includes real estate and business disputes involving contracts and purchase and sale agreements, title and boundary claims, easements, and business torts and fiduciary duties. She also handles riparian rights disputes involving waterfront property, including conflicts over docks, riparian lines, and access to navigable waters. She represents both plaintiffs and defendants and handles matters from pre-suit through trial and appeal.
Lainey's clients also include businesses in Florida's agricultural sector, where her familiarity with the industry's operations and regulatory environment informs her work. She advises and represents ranchers, growers, and agricultural landowners in matters involving grazing and land leases, crop damage claims, access and right-of-way disputes, and the land use conflicts that arise as development moves toward working agricultural land. A lifelong resident of St. Lucie County, she was selected for the Florida Farm Bureau Federation's Young Farmers & Ranchers Leadership Class 11, representing District 7. Through the program she works alongside industry leaders on the regulatory and economic issues shaping Florida agriculture.
Lainey holds leadership positions in several legal and industry organizations. She is President of the Federal Bar Association, Palm Beach County Chapter; serves on the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit's Professionalism Panel Executive Board and the Board of Trustees of the Rupert J. Smith Law Library of St. Lucie County; and is Immediate Past President of the St. Lucie County Bar Association. She is also a graduate of Leadership St. Lucie, a program of the St. Lucie County Chamber of Commerce. Her work has been recognized on Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America and Palm Beach Illustrated's "Top Lawyers" lists.
Lainey earned her Juris Doctor cum laude from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where she served as a Managing Editor of the Florida Law Review and was selected for membership in Florida Blue Key. During law school, she was a summer associate at Jones Foster, a judicial extern to U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, and a Certified Legal Intern with the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office.