HOUSTON – AZA partners Cameron Byrd and Kelsi Stayart White were included in Law360’s 2026 Top Attorneys Under 40. Each was named in the top five or six of their legal specialties – trial for Mr. Byrd and appellate for Ms. White.
Law360 says it reviewed more than 1,100 submissions and that winners’ “legal accomplishments belie their age.” Most of the lawyers on the list were from large international firms.
For AZA to have two lawyers named was remarkable. Law360 noted in its story that one international law firm with 2,000 lawyers and another with 2,300 each had five lawyers on the list. AZA has 66 lawyers and has two honorees, and this is not the first time an AZA lawyer has made this exclusive, prestigious national list. Jason McManis, head of AZA’s intellectual property group, was named in 2022.
“This is an outstanding honor and well deserved by Cameron and Kelsi, who both quickly distinguished themselves with hard work and exceptional skill and savvy,” said AZA co-founder and managing partner John Zavitsanos. “We are especially proud at AZA to have two of our best singled out nationally in 2026. It’s an astounding result for a firm our size.”
Mr. Byrd has achieved what few, if any, trial lawyers of his vintage have achieved in commercial litigation in their first 11 years of practice. After serving as first chair in a $60 million federal jury trial as a second-year lawyer, he has never looked back. He has tried 14 commercial trials, first-chaired trial wins with $520 million at issue, served as lead counsel on matters worth more than $1 billion, obtained more than $100 million of settlements in the last three years alone and originated matters for AZA with more than $800 million in dispute.
No young trial lawyer builds a narrative around these trial fundamentals better. In his $44 million win in McMullen County, Texas, the jury foreman said he was “the best lawyer in the courtroom”— even though the courtroom had five more senior, Chambers-ranked lawyers. Another juror found Mr. Byrd’s cell phone number and called him after the verdict to say, “I told my wife that watching you destroy that expert made me want to be a lawyer.”
A partner who is board certified in civil appellate law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, Ms. White is increasingly sought out to argue cases even when she did not participate in the briefing. This is a recognition of her communication skills in appellate courts. Colleagues say she is precise, speaks plainly and does not lean on an overly academic style.
She conducted six oral arguments in federal circuit courts and Texas and Louisiana appellate courts in just the first four months of 2026. In four of them, she was not the primary author on briefs.
When she helped change two workplace sexual harassment laws at the U.S. 5th Circuit, Texas Lawbook newspaper wrote a laudatory story about her skills, noting from her managing partner that: “Her judgment approached the tip of Mount Everest from day one. She’s arguably the smartest person at the firm, but her intelligence sneaks up on you because there is no arrogance or one-upmanship that comes with it. Instead, she makes people around her feel smarter, in part because she’s a consensus builder. In any dialogue, she challenges an idea without challenging the person.”
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.