News & Insights

Rachel Lary, Rachelle Sanchez and Wesley Smithart Appointed to Alabama State Bar Task Force

September 27, 2020

Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC partner Rachel M. Lary has been appointed as Co-Chair of the Alabama State Bar’s “Lawyer Voices for Survivors Task Force.”  Associate Rachelle E. Sanchez and M. Wesley Smithart have been appointed to serve on the Task Force.

The task force’s purpose is to conduct outreach, supply resources for the public and provide free legal services to human trafficking survivors. The task force will also assist in identifying potential speakers and presentations for the Alabama State Bar’s meetings and webinars.

Lary represents clients in business disputes, product liability claims, medical malpractice matters, and trust and estate disputes. She serves as national counsel for several major clients and leads a product liability team for a Fortune 500 company that requires overseeing and managing litigation in multiple states. Lary is recognized in The Best Lawyers in America© for commercial litigation, corporate compliance law, and product liability litigation, and she is a Super Lawyers “Rising Star.” She has also been recognized by the Birmingham Business Journal as a “Rising Star in Law.”

Before joining Lightfoot, Sanchez was a criminal prosecutor, where she first-chaired numerous trials and spent the majority of her time in the courtroom. Now, she applies that trial and courtroom experience to her civil practice, where she focuses on medical malpractice and product liability litigation defense.

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.