Practice Areas:  Litigation

Biography:  Ms. Messall maintains a litigation practice in Colorado state, federal and administrative law courts. Recent clients have included lenders and owners with real property title disputes over lien priority, easements, boundaries, zoning, access and related matters. Other cases have involved Constitutional and election law, construction defect, real estate development and general commercial law. She previously practiced with the Denver firm of Karsh, Fulton, Gabler & Joseph, P.C. handling litigation and curative work for insured lenders and owners under title insurance policies, and other cases involving issues such as trade secrets violations and transfers in fraud of creditor’s rights.

Her background includes seven years with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Denver and the Resolution Trust Corporation in Kansas City, where she served as litigation section chief and senior attorney, respectively. In those positions she supervised other attorneys and support staff, served as counsel for the bulk sale of loans out of failed banks, counseled day-to-day the managers of bank and savings & loan receiverships and conservatorships  for dozens of financial institutions, managed outside counsel across the country for hundreds of inherited disputes, including complex real estate loan defaults and foreclosures, and advised managers concerning such issues as the treatment of subsidiaries, environmental and employee matters. She served as transaction attorney for the government's take-over of institutions and also for government bid-letting on the sale of financial institutions' assets and transfer of deposits.

Rebecca has also defended municipalities, school districts and local taxing authorities on Constitutional cases under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 for claims under the First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Education: J.D. University of Missouri- Kansas City, 1982; B.A. History, cum laude, Kansas State University, 1976.

Admissions:  Colorado, Texas, Kansas and Missouri

Distinctions:  
UMKC Law Review
Various published articles
FDIC merit award for $40 million settlement by two large investment firms

Chair, board of directors for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Denver.  National Lawyers Association, past-president, 2007-2008. Vice-president of the St. Thomas More Society of Colorado, Inc.