Jones Foster Celebrates 100 Years of Legal Services in Palm Beach County

Jones Foster, a commercial and private client law firm, is proud to announce its 100-year milestone as a Palm Beach County-based business with offices in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, and Jupiter.

“Our product is our people,” said Scott G. Hawkins, newly elected firm chairman. “We’ve been able to thrive for 100 years and to frankly grow and prosper. This milestone represents sustained excellence, sustained growth, and the ability to attract quality lawyers and staff who can represent and serve a broad spectrum of clients. As the pressures in Florida have transformed over time, we’ve had clients who’ve grown with us, helped us to grow, and we’ve helped them in turn to grow and work through their legal issues.”

Jones Foster traces its roots in the legal community to downtown West Palm Beach during the height of the 1920s land boom. The demand for real estate drew investors and sparked new, planned developments that resulted in incorporated towns and cities. “The firm developed early an expertise for handling liability-related litigation of a tort nature in defending businesses, including the railroads,” Mr. Hawkins says. Two of the firm’s earliest name partners, Roger K. Lewis and Robert L. Earnest, 1924 graduates of the University of Florida law school, became trial lawyers who represented clients such as Florida Power & Light Co., Florida East Coast Railway, and other major corporations.

“The firm for many, many years was primarily an insurance defense firm,” says Larry B. Alexander, real estate practice group chair and former chairman of Jones Foster. “Prior to the sixties and seventies, it continued to be an insurance defense firm in some areas, but as deep as the area grew, the commercial practice grew, and we transitioned lawyers.”

Over the years, the firm’s name changed as new partners joined but the arrival of name partners Colonel R. Bruce Jones in 1946 and William A. Foster in 1952 marked a significant point in the firm’s history. These attorneys were instrumental in its growth and evolution and their names continue to define the firm today.

Colonel Jones, a highly decorated World War II Army veteran, was commander of the 7th Armoured Division's 814th Tank Destroyer Battalion and played a critical role in the Battle of the Bulge's defense of St. Vith. He joined the firm following the war to handle federal tax matters and is largely responsible for growing the firm’s commercial practice. One of his most notable accomplishments is forming the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida, where he would serve as its general counsel for the next 25 years. The documents he authored would later be used by other agricultural co-ops throughout the country. The organization remains a client of the firm to this day.

When Palm Beach County hired Colonel Jones as County Attorney in the late 1960s, it established important contacts and opened doors for the firm to expand into new practice areas, including land use and zoning. Paul C. Wolfe became the county’s go-to attorney for zoning matters. “When he started our land use and zoning practice, it was one of the reasons our real estate practice took off… it was sought out by developers because of his zoning expertise,” Mr. Alexander says.

Mr. Foster, a U.S. Navy veteran, was mentored by former name partner and circuit judge Dwight Culver Smith and became a highly respected trial lawyer who was considered one of the best at cross-examination in the county. During his career, Mr. Foster served as president of the Palm Beach County Bar Association (PBCBA) and the Junior Bar Association, and as a member of the Florida Bar Board of Governors.

The firm saw a dramatic shift in the 1960s with the hiring of George H. Bailey, a corporate lawyer from New York who focused his practice on commercial, probate, and marital litigation, and brought with him a wealth of contacts that led to a tremendous increase in real estate and tax matters. The firm began to move away from insurance defense work to focus on developing a more diverse, general practice that handled a wide range of complex matters. Mr. Bailey would become a close mentor to many future Jones Foster shareholders and presidents, including Sidney A. Stubbs, who joined the firm in 1967.

Mr. Stubbs, known as a “lawyer’s lawyer,” focused his practice in the areas of complex commercial litigation and law firm litigation, building a prestigious career spanning several decades. He served as a stalwart leader in the legal community as well as in nonprofit circles and was known by colleagues and opposing counsel alike as the standard for ethics and professionals. As a past president of PBCBA, the county bar renamed its annual professionalism award in Mr. Stubbs’ honor for his outstanding leadership in the legal community for nearly 50 years. In 1987, Mr. Stubbs was installed as president of the firm.

As the firm’s roster of attorneys grew, so did an impressive list of blue-chip clients in the Fortune 500. In the late 1980s, the firm known then as Jones & Foster served as local counsel to Chase Manhattan Bank, Citibank, Costco Wholesale Corp., Sears, Roebuck & Co., as well as many automotive giants including General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Goodyear Tire Co., and Avid Rent-A-Car Systems, Inc. L. Martin Flanagan, a civil trial attorney, handled product liability litigation for the firm for nearly 30 years.

In the summer of 1988, the firm expanded to include Harry A. Johnston, II, John C. “Skip” Randolph, and H. Adams Weaver and was renamed Jones, Foster, Johnston & Stubbs. While the firm would carry the prestige of Mr. Johnston’s Florida Senate career and successful run for U.S. Congress in the joinder, firm leaders considered the move “simple economics” as it further developed its general practice to deliver more legal services, which included the acquisition of several municipalities as clients and additional experience in eminent domain and land use and zoning law.

Over the past century, Jones Foster has played an integral role in the development of Palm Beach County through its legal counsel and representation of local governments and entities, including the towns of Palm Beach, Jupiter, Jupiter Island, Lake Park, Gulfstream, and the Village of Tequesta, as well as planning and zoning boards, and community redevelopment agencies, all of which have contributed to managing growth and infrastructure of many of its cities and towns.

As a result of Jones Foster’s storied history and longstanding relationships with the county, the City of West Palm Beach, and the towns of Palm Beach and Jupiter, their governing leaders have presented firm leadership with proclamations and a city tribute recognizing its 100^th anniversary in business. Additionally, the Chamber of Commerce of the Palm Beaches commemorated the firm’s centennial with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and acknowledged the firm as a 64-year legacy member.

Jones Foster attorneys have cultivated a legacy of leadership in the local legal community and beyond in 100 years, including 10 past presidents of the Palm Beach County Bar Association, many of whom first served as presidents of its Young Lawyers Section and several who served as presidents of its North County Section. The firm has also seen several attorneys become presidents of local voluntary bar associations, including the Palm Beach Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates, the Federal Bar Association Palm Beach County Chapter, and the Florida Defense Lawyers Association. On a statewide level, the firm has had several attorneys serve on the Florida Bar Board of Governors, notably Mr. Hawkins, who went on to serve as Florida Bar president (2011-2012). Six attorneys who began their legal careers at Jones Foster served on the bench in circuit, federal, and appellate courts, including James C. Paine, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to serve as a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Further, several of the firm’s attorneys became involved in the political realm, including Mr. Stubbs, who served as special counsel to former Florida Gov. Bob Graham in the mid-1980s. Mr. Johnston was a fixture in Florida politics for more than 20 years and eventually became a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and was appointed by President Bill Clinton as a special envoy to Sudan.

Outside of the legal community, the firm’s attorneys have and continue to forge relationships through industry organizations to promote the region’s civic and cultural welfare and its continued growth as leaders of the Economic Council of Palm Beach County, Chamber of Commerce of the Palm Beaches, Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce, and educational institutions such as the University of Florida’s College of Law and College of Medicine, as well as Palm Beach Atlantic University.

In addition, Jones Foster’s involvement in Palm Beach County goes beyond legal services to a century-long culture of leadership in community service, notably with the Kiwanis Club of West Palm Beach and its Foundation, where several attorneys have served as presidents and board directors and continue to serve as active leaders and members. The firm’s attorneys also have helped establish local nonprofit organizations as founding board members over the years, including the Children’s Services of Palm Beach County, the Community Foundation of Palm Beach and Martin Counties, and Meals on Wheels of the Palm Beaches, and have served as chair and presidents of the Palm Beach Fellowship of Christians and Jews, HomeSafe Florida, and the United Way of Palm Beach County, among others.

The firm continues to be inspired by the contributions of its predecessors, holding tight to its values and culture while embracing change. In 2019, the firm announced the unveiling of its new brand identity and a simplified name change to Jones Foster, a strategic move to differentiate from the long-held naming convention of law firms and to speak to the brand’s forward-thinking culture.

As Chairman Hawkins leads the firm into its next chapter of growth, he remains committed to exceptional client service and the development of the next generation of firm leaders, “Our focus has always been: How do we serve our clients in a good, correct, ethical, upstanding, talented way; and how do we develop young lawyers to be the best they can be? I think that’s really been our ethos – developing outstanding lawyers, doing outstanding legal work.”