News & Insights

Lightfoot Welcomes Four New Associates

October 1, 2020

Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC is pleased to welcome four new associates to the firm: Rebecca K. Hall, Brooke L. Messina, Richard A. Rosario and M. Wesley Smithart. All four join Lightfoot’s Birmingham, Alabama office. 

Hall was previously with a firm in New York City, where she handled matters ranging from general commercial litigation and class actions to white-collar investigations. Currently, she represents clients in cases related to medical malpractice, professional liability, commercial litigation, and environmental and toxic torts. She graduated from Emory Law School with honors and served as an executive managing editor of the Emory Law Journal. 

Messina graduated from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University with honors, served as managing editor of the Cumberland Law Review and was a finalist in the Senior Moot Court Competition. She was a summer clerk at Lightfoot in 2019. Brooke regularly spends time working at legal clinics and help desks run by the Birmingham Bar Volunteer Lawyers Program.

Rosario is a graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School and was president of the Mock Trial Board in his third year. While in law school, Rosario had internships with the Federal Public Defender’s office in Nashville, Tennessee, as well as the Nashville Metropolitan Legal Department. He was a summer clerk with Lightfoot in 2019.

Smithart received her law degree from the University of Alabama School of Law with honors and was special works editor for the Alabama Law Review. While in law school, she was a member of the Moot Court Board and served as president of the Alabama Law Student Alumni Society. Smithart was a summer clerk at Lightfoot in 2018 and 2019 and previously had internships with the Alabama Sentencing Commission and U.S. Senator Richard Shelby.