Deep Dive – Elizabeth Anne Tener
Family Law Lawyer, Greenspoon Marder LLP — Orlando & Winter Park, Florida
High Net-Worth Divorce and Custody Litigation

In this episode we take a detailed look at Elizabeth Anne Tener, a Florida family law attorney and partner at Greenspoon Marder LLP, one of the larger national law firms headquartered in Florida. The focus is not a particular case but rather a professional profile: who she is, how her career developed, and how attorneys in high-asset divorce and custody litigation operate within the legal system.

The discussion is based entirely on publicly available records, including law firm biographies, Florida Bar licensing information, professional publications, and legal organization memberships. The purpose of the episode is to understand the structure of a legal career in family law and how lawyers working in complex divorce cases build experience and professional reputation.

This episode also briefly explains the research methodology, which relies on open-source research techniques sometimes referred to as OSINT (open-source intelligence). No confidential documents, private communications, or non-public databases were used.

Elizabeth Anne Tener is a marital and family law attorney based in Central Florida. She is a partner in the Marital & Family Law practice group at Greenspoon Marder LLP, working primarily in the Orlando and Winter Park legal markets.

Her practice focuses on complex family law matters, including:

• high-net-worth divorce
• contested child custody disputes
• alimony and child support litigation
• valuation and division of marital assets
• prenuptial and postnuptial agreements
• relocation and parenting plan disputes
• enforcement and modification of court orders
• paternity and adoption matters
• domestic violence injunction proceedings

Many of these cases involve complicated financial structures such as businesses, investments, real estate holdings, and retirement assets.

Elizabeth Tener’s academic background includes:

Centenary College of Louisiana
Bachelor of Arts — Professional Writing
Minor — Business Administration
Graduated: 2001

A background in professional writing can be particularly relevant to legal practice, as litigation often involves drafting motions, pleadings, and persuasive legal arguments.

She later attended:

University of Miami School of Law

Juris Doctor — 2003

While in law school she participated in the Steel Hector & Davis Fellowship through the Center for Ethics and Public Service, a program focused on public interest law and professional ethics.

After graduating from law school, Tener began her legal career in public service.

She worked as an Assistant State Attorney in Florida’s Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, located in Palm Beach County.

In this role she served as a felony prosecutor in West Palm Beach, handling criminal cases on behalf of the State of Florida.

Public biographies state that she participated in more than fifty jury trials during this time. Prosecutorial work often provides extensive courtroom experience early in a lawyer’s career.

Many litigators later transition from prosecution into civil practice areas where trial experience is valuable.

After leaving the State Attorney’s Office, Tener moved into private practice and began focusing on marital and family law.

She worked with The Law Firm of Charles D. Jamieson, a boutique family law firm in South Florida.

Family law practice involves a wide range of issues related to marriage dissolution and family disputes, including property division, custody

Episode OverviewWho is Elizabeth Anne Tener?EducationEarly Career – ProsecutorTransition to Family Law

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The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects core freedoms from government interference. Ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, it states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."constitution.congress+1

It safeguards five main freedoms, often summarized as the "five freedoms."

• Religion: Prevents laws establishing a national religion (Establishment Clause) or banning its free exercise (Free Exercise Clause).wikipedia+1

• Speech: Shields spoken, written, symbolic, and expressive communication from censorship, though limits exist for incitement or threats.freedomofexpression.osu+1

• Press: Protects publishing and media from prior restraint or government control.[en.wikipedia]​

• Assembly: Guarantees peaceful gatherings and protests.[acluaz]​

• Petition: Allows citizens to seek government redress for grievances.[law.cornell]​

Originally limiting only federal Congress, its protections extended to states via the 14th Amendment starting in 1925 (Gitlow v. New York). Supreme Court cases like New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) reinforced broad speech and press rights against censorship.[en.wikipedia]​

It applies to government actions, not private entities, and covers diverse expression like art or association. Recent rulings, such as Janus v. AFSCME (2018), bar compelled speech like mandatory union fees.acluaz+1

Key ProtectionsHistorical ContextModern Scope

I grew up with a pretty simple operating system: I’m allergic to very little, but one thing I cannot tolerate is bullshit. That allergy didn’t develop in a classroom or a boardroom. It developed in Florida. Real Florida. The counties where land determines everything, where last names echo through courthouse hallways, and where everyone knows exactly which families have been pulling the strings for the last hundred years even if nobody says it out loud.

People say I have a chip on my shoulder about authority. Maybe I do. But if you grow up in places where power structures are inherited like farmland, that chip isn’t a personality flaw. It’s pattern recognition.

Florida runs on land.

Not tourism. Not beaches. Not retirement communities. Land. Who owned it first, who sold it, who developed it, and which law firms made the deals. If you trace the history of almost any county in this state, you’ll eventually hit the same intersection: land, money, politics, and lawyers.

Volusia County is one of those places where that intersection has been operating for more than a century.

The city of DeLand itself was founded in the 1870s by Henry DeLand, a northern industrialist who imagined the place as what he called the “Athens of Florida.” That vision brought institutions. Stetson University followed soon after. Citrus wealth flowed through the region during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Railroads connected the interior to the coast. And slowly, over decades, a small network of families and institutions began shaping the county’s civic life.

At the center of that ecosystem sits one of the oldest continuously operating law firms in Florida: Landis Graham French.

The firm was born in 1902 when Cary D. Landis and Bert Fish formed Landis & Fish in downtown DeLand. Over the next hundred years the firm produced state attorneys, judges, ambassadors, legislators, and legal scholars. Cary Landis himself became Florida’s Attorney General. Bert Fish would later serve as U.S. ambassador to Portugal and previously as America’s first minister to Saudi Arabia during the Roosevelt administration. Members of the firm were deeply involved in drafting legal frameworks that shaped Florida governance, including early foundations of what would eventually become the Florida Highway Patrol.

Over time the firm represented estates tied to some of the most influential figures connected to the region and the state. Stetson University. The estate of Adolph DeBary, namesake of the city of DeBary. Even the Florida estate of John D. Rockefeller.

For more than a century the firm evolved through mergers, new partners, and new political connections. Generations of lawyers joined, many with family ties that stretched through local government, the courts, and civic institutions. Partners served as presidents of the Volusia County Bar Association. Others became judges, state representatives, or key advisors inside county government.

In other words, this isn’t just a law firm. It’s an institutional pillar of the region.

And sometime along the way, the Ford family became part of that lineage.

Frank A. Ford Sr. joined the firm during a merger in 1969 that reshaped the partnership structure. He was instrumental in founding the Oil & Gas Law Section of the Florida Bar. Years later his son, F.A. “Alex” Ford Jr., joined the firm in 1983.

That’s where Alex Ford enters this story.

Now let me say something clearly before anyone misinterprets what I’m saying: I don’t hate Alex Ford. I don’t wake up thinking about Alex Ford. In fact, during one exchange he told me directly that he isn’t my adversary. Those are the facts.

But stories about power aren’t about personal hatred. They’re about context.

Alex Ford is a lifelong resident of DeLand. His legal practice focuses on eminent domain, land transactions, and development. That alone tells you something important, because in Florida those fields sit directly on top of the most valuable asset in the state: land.