Twenty-Five AZA Lawyers Named 2025 Texas Super Lawyers & Rising Stars
HOUSTON – Twenty-five AZA lawyers earned 2025 recognition by Texas Super Lawyers as Super Lawyers or Rising Stars for excellence, largely in business litigation, intellectual property and appellate work.
Firm co-founders Joe Ahmad and John Zavitsanos were once again listed among the Top 100 lawyers in Texas and in Houston. Mr. Zavitsanos is listed for business litigation expertise. Mr. Ahmad, who writes the blog Legal Issues in the Executive Suite, was highlighted for his expertise representing executives. Name partner Todd Mensing was again listed among the Top 100 in Houston for expertise in business litigation.
Also earning Super Lawyers recognition for business litigation expertise are partners Rey Flores, Sammy Ford IV, Tim Shelby and Monica Uddin; and of counsel Shawn Bates and David Warden. Earning recognition for their appellate work are of counsel Jane Langdell Robinson and JoAnn Storey. Former judge Daryl Moore was listed for his general litigation expertise. And senior lawyer Nicholas Petree was listed for his work in business litigation, business and corporate, and aviation and aerospace.
Super Lawyers selects attorneys using peer nominations, evaluations and independent research. Each candidate is evaluated on peer recognition and professional achievement. No more than 5% of lawyers in each state are selected every year for the peer review guide published by Thomson Reuters. Some of our lawyers have been on this list every year since this distinction came into existence in 2003.
Only 2.5% of lawyers in the state are chosen for Rising Stars, an exclusive listing of the state’s top lawyers who are age 40 or younger or who have been in practice for no longer than 10 years.
AZA Partners Weining Bai, Cameron Byrd, Nathan Campbell, Shahmeer Halepota, Jason McManis, Kyle Poelker, Paul Turkevich and Kelsi Stayart White were named to the Rising Stars list. Associates Michael Killingsworth, Louis Liao and Sujeeth Rajavolu and senior attorney Alfredo Montelongo were also named Rising Stars.
Messrs. Byrd, Campbell, Killingsworth, Poelker and Turkevich were named for their business litigation work. Messrs. Bai, Liao, McManis and Rajavolu earned selection for intellectual property prowess. Mr. Halepota was named for civil litigation – defense, Mr. Montelongo for construction litigation and Ms. White for her appellate expertise.
AZA, or Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing, is a Houston-based law firm that is home to true courtroom lawyers with a formidable track record in complex commercial litigation, including energy, healthcare, intellectual property and business dispute cases. AZA was recognized again by Chambers USA 2025 as 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 previously dubbed a Texas Powerhouse law firm by Law360.