About Our Firm

A Florida law firm rooted in Palm Beach County since 1950 and practicing under its own shingle since 1967 — built on the belief that clients are entitled to the direct attention of an experienced lawyer, not a file number.

Our History

Foster & Fuchs, P.A. traces its origins to 1950, when Robert McKerness “Bob” Foster, Jr. began practicing law in Palm Beach County. A graduate of Emory University and Stetson University College of Law, and a Captain in the United States Army Counter Intelligence Corps during World War II, he returned to the community his family had settled in a generation earlier and spent the balance of his life serving it.

He practiced for a number of years with the firm of Caldwell, Pacetti, Foster & Barrow. In 1963 his peers elected him President of the Palm Beach County Bar Association. In 1967 he opened his own office — the practice that continues today as Foster & Fuchs, P.A. Over the course of his career he was admitted to practice before all Florida courts, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United States.

The values he set at the outset — professional excellence, personal service, ethical advocacy, and commitment to clients — are the values the firm still measures itself against. Mr. Foster died in 1998. The firm he founded has now served Florida clients for more than half a century, and continues under the leadership of attorneys who learned the practice from him and from one another.

Firm Milestones

1950 — Robert McK. Foster, Jr. is admitted to practice and begins his career in Palm Beach County.

1963 — Mr. Foster is elected President of the Palm Beach County Bar Association.

1967 — Mr. Foster opens his own firm, the direct predecessor of Foster & Fuchs, P.A.

1984 — John Fenn Foster is admitted to The Florida Bar and joins the practice.

1994 — Lance C. Fuchs joins the firm; the firm takes its present name, Foster & Fuchs, P.A.

Today — The firm continues to serve individuals, families, businesses, associations, and governmental and nonprofit entities across Florida.

How We Practice

How We Practice

Foster & Fuchs is deliberately a small firm. A client who retains the firm works with the lawyer handling the matter, and that lawyer knows the file. There is no intake department between the client and counsel, and no layer of associates learning the matter, and learning to practice law at the client’s expense.

  • Direct access to counsel. Clients deal with the attorney responsible for the work, from the first conversation through resolution.
  • Judgment over volume. The firm takes on matters it is well positioned to handle, and says so plainly when a matter is better referred elsewhere.
  • Practical, business-minded advice. The goal is a workable answer — a transaction that closes, a document that holds up, a dispute that ends on acceptable terms — not a memorandum for its own sake.
  • Long relationships. Much of the firm’s work comes from clients and families it has advised for decades, and from lawyers, accountants, and business advisors who refer matters to it.
  • Institutional continuity. The firm has served some clients across generations of ownership and family leadership, and keeps records and institutional knowledge accordingly.

What We Do

The firm maintains a general civil practice with concentrations in the areas below. Matters that fall outside these areas are referred to counsel better suited to handle them.

Business and Corporate

Entity selection and formation; shareholder, partnership, and operating agreements; governance and recordkeeping; purchases and sales of businesses and their assets; commercial contracts and vendor agreements; owner succession planning; and general outside counsel services to closely held companies.

Real Estate and Land Use

Commercial and residential acquisitions and dispositions; purchase and sale agreements and due diligence; title review and survey matters; leasing for landlords and tenants; easements, restrictions, and access issues; development and permitting matters; and land use and zoning proceedings before local governmental bodies.

Construction and Development

Owner-side review and negotiation of design and construction contracts, including construction-manager-at-risk and design-build forms; guaranteed maximum price and contingency provisions; bonding and insurance requirements; grant-funded and public-private project agreements; and construction payment and lien issues.

Estate Planning, Probate, and Trust Administration

Wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, powers of attorney, and health care directives; probate and estate administration; trust administration and accountings; guardianship matters; and representation of personal representatives, trustees, and beneficiaries.

Probate, Trust, and Guardianship Litigation

The firm represents personal representatives, trustees, guardians, beneficiaries, and heirs in contested proceedings in Florida’s probate and circuit courts. This work includes will and trust contests raising undue influence, lack of capacity, or defective execution; petitions to remove, suspend, or surcharge a fiduciary; breach of fiduciary duty, accounting, and self-dealing disputes; construction and reformation of ambiguous instruments; elective share, homestead, and exempt property disputes; creditor claim litigation; adversary proceedings over assets alleged to belong to an estate; claims involving lifetime transfers, joint accounts, and beneficiary designations; and contested incapacity and guardianship matters. Because the firm also drafts the instruments and administers the estates, it comes to a contested matter already fluent in the documents and the procedure, and equally able to counsel a fiduciary on how to keep a disagreement from becoming litigation at all. Where mediation or a negotiated settlement agreement serves the parties better than a trial, the firm says so.

Nonprofit, Association, and Fair Law

Representation of nonprofit corporations, membership associations, and Florida agricultural fair associations, including governance and bylaws, Chapter 616, Florida Statutes, compliance, premium books and competition rules, contracts with vendors and carnival operators, waivers and liability documentation, incident reporting practices, and agreements with counties and other governmental partners.

Government and Administrative Law

Interlocal and memorandum-of-understanding agreements with counties and municipalities; public records and open-meetings questions; procurement and grant compliance; and appearances before administrative bodies.

Personal Injury and Civil Litigation

Representation of both injured persons and defendants in premises liability, negligent security, motor vehicle, and maritime and cruise passenger injury matters; defense of civil claims where the firm is retained by a company or its insurer; insurance coverage disputes, including claims arising from lapsed or improperly placed coverage; and general commercial and contract litigation.

Insurance and Risk

Coverage analysis, claims against agents and brokers for errors and omissions, additional-insured and indemnity issues in commercial agreements, and risk-allocation review for events, venues, and construction projects.

Whom We Represent

The firm’s clients include closely held family businesses; individuals and families planning for the transfer of wealth; property owners, landlords, tenants, and developers; nonprofit corporations and membership associations; agricultural fair associations and event organizations; governmental and quasi-governmental entities; personal representatives, trustees, and beneficiaries; and individuals injured through the fault of others.

The firm also serves as ongoing general counsel to organizations that require a lawyer familiar with their history, their governing documents, and the people who run them. Attorneys who are available for the short question as readily as for the significant transaction or conflict.

Whom We Represent

Community and Professional Service

Service outside the office has been part of the firm since its founding. Robert McK. Foster, Jr. served as President of the Palm Beach County Bar Association, sat on the Board of Trustees of Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, from 1970 to 1981, and gave his time to the Palm Glades Girl Scout Council, the YMCA, the American Legion, the American Red Cross, the American Cancer Society, and the Community Chest.

The firm’s attorneys continue that tradition through bar association work, service to nonprofit and community organizations, and representation of civic institutions.