Founder & President
Jonathan Franks
Jonathan Franks is the founder and president of LUCID Strategies. He came out of professional politics — and has spent the two decades since in the room for other people’s hardest moments, from bet-the-company crises to the families of Americans wrongfully held abroad.
Career at a glance
01
Professional politics
He began in national politics — serving as a staff assistant to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — and in private practice at a Washington, D.C. law firm, where he handled communications around high-profile criminal cases.
02
Crisis & strategic communications
Drawn to high-stakes litigation and “bet-the-company” situations, he built a practice bringing calm and judgment to otherwise chaotic moments — and relocated to Los Angeles to do it at scale.
03
LUCID Strategies
He founded LUCID (formerly LUCID Public Relations) and built it into a boutique crisis & issues firm working bicoastally for individuals, companies, and nonprofits.
04
Wrongful-detention advocacy
Since 2013, he has become best known for his advocacy on behalf of Americans wrongfully detained abroad — as a family spokesperson and, previously, as spokesman for the Bring Our Families Home campaign.
From politics to crisis
A graduate of Connecticut College in government and economics, Jonathan got his start in Washington — first handling the press around high-profile criminal cases at a major D.C. law firm, then inside national politics as a staff assistant to the House Majority Leader. That grounding — in litigation, in political communications, and in genuinely high-stakes situations — became the foundation of everything LUCID does.
Best known for
Jonathan is best known for his work on behalf of Americans wrongfully detained abroad and their families. LUCID does not negotiate releases — that work belongs to the government. What Jonathan does is help families manage the press, the messaging, and the machinery of government, so they can keep their attention on the person they are trying to bring home. See the detained-abroad case studies →
Across the practice
Beyond detention work, he advises on crisis and issues management, litigation communications, reputation management, and political risk — and helped guide former CIA Director and Ambassador R. James Woolsey through the public dimensions of the Special Counsel investigation, in a role that was strategic and non-legal. See selected outcomes →
In the press
His work and commentary have appeared across ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, PBS NewsHour, and NewsNation, and in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, the Associated Press, NPR, and Reuters, among others. See the newsroom →