AZA Named as Finalist for Two Texas Legal Awards
HOUSTON – AZA and partner Monica Uddin were named as finalists for the Texas Legal Awards 2026 sponsored by Texas Lawyer and Law.com.
AZA is a finalist in the Litigation Departments of the Year, General Litigation category. The firm has won this award three times. As in the past, finalists on this year’s list are predominately global law firms with Texas offices.
Ms. Uddin is a finalist for Influential Woman of the Year. The award honors “Texas’ best women lawyers who have made a remarkable difference in the legal profession.”
Texas Lawyer said the awards honor “the attorneys and law firms making a lasting impact on the Texas legal landscape. From groundbreaking case wins to innovative legal strategies, we celebrate those who are shaping the future of law and delivering exceptional results for their clients.”
The litigation department award focuses on 2025 cases. The firm’s 2025 victories include: saving energy and financial sector clients hundreds of millions, getting justice for wronged patent-holding inventors, avenging a college freshman falsely and viciously attacked on social media, squelching a first-impression lawsuit against a fashion influencer and prevailing in key rulings for patients whose private information is being sold by healthcare providers.
The firm won the first two trials in the Texas Business Courts in 2025, both in the energy sector. Its appellate group convinced the Texas Supreme Court that Texas’s civil barratry statute could not reach conduct that occurred in other states. Its IP group tripled its caseload. Its commercial trial group obtained or saved clients billions.
Ms. Uddin had an impressive year as well. She led the effort to form the new Women in the Law section of the Houston Bar Association, designed to examine issues about women in the legal profession by developing programming and promoting awareness through CLEs and mentoring. She will serve as membership vice chair of that new section.
For years, she has been hiring diverse lawyers as the hiring partner at AZA, mentoring the younger women at the firm and serving as co-chair of the bar’s Gender Fairness Committee. In May, Ms. Uddin was awarded the Houston Bar Association’s President’s Award for her committee leadership in the last year. In April, she was honored by the Association of Women Attorneys Foundation with a Premier Women in the Law Award.
The winners will be announced at a Sept. 30 event at the Arts District Mansion in Dallas.
Houston and Dallas trial boutique Ahmad Zavitsanos & Mensing, or AZA, has earned repeated recognition from Chambers USA among the best in Texas in commercial law and intellectual property; the firm has been listed by Best Lawyers’ Best Law Firms as one of the country’s best commercial litigation firms for 13 years; has been named Litigation Department of the Year by Texas Lawyer three times; and was dubbed a Texas Powerhouse law firm by Law360.