2026 Top Franchise Lawyers You Should Know: Marisa Faunce — Plave Koch PLC

Franchise Legal Player: Marisa Faunce
Firm: Plave Koch PLC

Marisa Faunce has built a career helping franchise brands protect what matters most — their intellectual property, operational integrity and long-term growth strategy. As a partner at Plave Koch PLC, Faunce advises franchisors across industries on compliance, trademark protection and system development while working closely with leadership teams to understand the real-world dynamics of their brands. Her approach combines legal precision with relationship-driven advising that helps franchise systems grow responsibly.

1851 Franchise connected with Faunce to discuss the legal issues franchisors often overlook, where emerging brands can stumble during documentation and the experiences that continue to shape her advisory philosophy.

1851 Franchise: What originally drew you to franchise law, and what has kept you engaged in the space over time?

Marisa Faunce: One of the first cases that I handled as a junior attorney involved a holdover franchisee that was misusing the franchisor’s trademarks. The franchisor had terminated the franchise agreement based on the franchisee’s failure to pay royalty fees. In response, the franchisee thought that it would be perfectly acceptable to take the franchisor’s logo and “creatively” replace the brand name with their own name. Everything else in the restaurant was exactly the same, including the color scheme and menu.

As we delved into the IP issues in the case, I learned about franchising, and then I was hooked. Over the years, I got involved with the work of the International Franchise Association in protecting the franchise business model. I really enjoy working with entrepreneurs and franchisors who are passionate about their businesses and the franchisees that they support.

1851: As franchising continues to evolve, what legal issue do you see brands most often underestimating today?

Faunce: Brand owners need to focus on protection of their intellectual property, including their trademarks. Although most brands have registered their brand name and primary logo with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, they need to examine the other marks that they and their franchisees are using in the system.

These would include product names, service offerings, slogans and taglines. Each time a new mark is introduced, the mark needs to be “cleared” to make sure that it does not infringe on another user’s mark. This is particularly important in franchise brands where the franchisor is licensing the marks to the franchisees to use. In addition to registration and protection here in the U.S., brands also should assess their international expansion goals and map out a plan for protecting their marks in target markets well in advance of exporting the brand.

1851: In your experience, where do emerging franchisors tend to get tripped up from a compliance or documentation standpoint?

Faunce: Emerging franchisors will often budget for the startup costs of developing their franchise program, including the creation of their franchise disclosure documents and related agreements; however, they fail to recognize that they need a good franchise contract administrator to prepare their deal documents.

I have seen franchise agreements where the franchisor signed the contract under the franchisee’s signature block and vice versa, where the agreements don’t have a unit address or identified protected territory, where half the blanks in the agreement are not completed, and where the wrong state required addenda are used. When you couple these mistakes with the failure to maintain adequate records of the FDD receipts, the result can be catastrophic.

1851: How should franchisors be thinking about risk management as they scale into new markets or add new unit growth strategies?

Faunce: Franchisors need to evaluate supply chain issues as they head into new markets. If they have been operating in a particular region of the country, they may have formed relationships with local distributors. When a franchisee opens as the first unit in a new market, they will oftentimes face heightened costs due strictly to the geographic distance that must be covered in transit.

Researching alternate and nationwide supply contracts is a critical component of expansion into new markets.

1851: What distinguishes your approach or philosophy when working with franchise clients?

Faunce: I value my relationships with my franchise clients, many of whom I have worked with for more than a decade. I take the time to learn about my clients’ businesses, their challenges, their successes and their goals. The more that I know about the brand, the team members and the franchisees, the better assistance I can provide to the system.

I especially value the opportunity to meet face-to-face with my clients, be that on Teams, on Zoom, at their office, my office or over a meal. These personal interactions are invaluable to me.

1851: Looking back, what lesson from your legal career has had the greatest impact on how you advise clients today?

Faunce: I was selected to speak at a conference on the difference between licensing and franchising. My portion of the program would be devoted to franchising. On the morning of the conference, my co-panelist got stuck in traffic and didn’t make the event. I had to pivot quickly to present his portion of the program in addition to my own.

From that point on, I have made a conscious effort to learn everything that I can about any issue that I am working on. I think that having a 360-degree lens on issues is invaluable. Therefore, I run training programs as often as possible for my clients. Even if someone works in an administrative role or an executive role that is tangential to the franchise team, they need to understand the franchise laws and regulations that impact their businesses.

My clients tend to learn something new in each training program that I run — whether that learning comes from a topic that I cover or an issue that one of their team members raises.

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