Houston Trial Lawyer Guides Blind Runners

Houston Trial Lawyer Guides Blind Runners

June 23, 2025 | Texas Lawyer

Houston trial lawyer Cameron Byrd guides blind runners in half-marathons and other competitive races—an experience that has improved his stamina and communication skills in high-stakes courtroom battles.

Byrd trains for the Houston Half Marathon and Houston Bar Association 10K each year, along with other AZA lawyers who wear “AZA Wolfpack” shirts. What makes his running unique is that he serves as a guide for blind runners. In 2024, he guided a 60-something deaf and blind woman and, most recently, a fast-blind man in his early 40s who ran at an 8-minute mile pace.

Byrd got involved in guide running after his daughters were diagnosed with a condition that would cause vision loss later in life. The experience has taught him valuable lessons about perseverance, communication, and perspective that directly translate to his trial work.

“A trial is just a true physical endurance contest, so we just finished a big trial, and I slept two or three hours a night for four or five weeks straight, and the night before closing… slept 30 minutes at a hotel across the street from the courthouse,” Byrd said.

AZA partner Cameron Byrd, left, runs tethered to fast legally blind runner Mike Tubiak, right, in January in the 2025 Houston half marathon.

Byrd, a partner at AZA law firm in Houston, specializes in commercial, intellectual property, and bankruptcy disputes. As lead counsel, Byrd has successfully handled trials and dispositive motions in state and federal court, bankruptcy court, and arbitration.

In a profession built on control, outcomes, and constant performance, hobbies are one of the only ways to give the nervous system a break, said Mairead Molloy Doyle, a relationship psychologist based in London. The legal industry is a pressure cooker, she said.

“The hours are long, the stakes are high, and the emotional toll is relentless,” Molloy Doyle said. “I work with lawyers and high-achieving professionals every day, and what I see over and over again is this: burnout, anxiety, strained relationships, and a total inability to switch off.”

Hobbies pull them out of their head and back into their body, she said.

“They remind you who you are outside your title and your billing targets,” Molloy Doyle said. “And they give you access to something many lawyers desperately need: lightness, freedom, and play.”

“The hobby itself does not matter — what matters is that it has nothing to do with law,” she said.

Byrd sees his running hobby as a way to let off steam and handle stress, but it also sharpens his skills. In addition to endurance and communication skills, Byrd’s guide running experience has made him a better trial lawyer by improving his perspective on overcoming challenges. He has learned a great deal from the blind runners he has guided.

“Neither of them ever complained,” Byrd said. “I mean, all kinds of annoying stuff happens during a race… and that just really translates to trial where it’s a very human experience and stuff goes wrong with your witnesses, with the court, with logistics, and other stuff and just good lessons about always trying to turn a negative into a positive.”

He recalled the deaf and blind runner he guided in a half marathon who had diabetes.

“Just about everything went wrong, including that year was also very cold, and her blood sugar monitor froze halfway through the race,” he said. “Still, she did not complain once.”

Communicating is key when guiding blind runners through these crowded courses with thousands of other runners and various obstacles, Byrd said.

“The whole time I’m calling out potholes, changes in surface, slower runners in front of us, turns coming up, water stations coming up, bathrooms coming up… you have to get other people who are total strangers to do what you want them to do in a split second,” Byrd said.

The experience has also provided perspective and personal growth in his own life.

“For these people in particular, some blind runners will tell you this saved their life… got them out of the house and off the couch and kind of out of the dark place into a place where they are proving to themselves, they can still do hard and important things,” Byrd said.

This is the sixth story in a series on litigators with hobbies.