AZA DOES DALLAS

In early 2026, AZA will break its 32-year tradition and open a second office. AZA is branching out to Dallas with offices in the Trammell Crow Center downtown.

The plan is to have 10 lawyers there within 12 months, although the office will launch with two partners and 2 associates. Intellectual property and patent work, a significant practice at AZA, will be one of the mainstays of the Dallas office.

Warren McCarty, who is already in Dallas at his own firm, will be managing partner of that office. AZA partner Kyle Poelker, now of Houston, will be head of commercial litigation for Dallas, and two associates will also be there at launch.

“I believe AZA is a sleeping giant as it relates particularly to intellectual property cases,” Mr. McCarty told Texas Lawbook. “They have a world-class commercial practice.  Jason McManis has done an excellent job growing the IP group, and it’s primed to be a rocket ship. There are no ceilings,” he told Texas Lawbook, which broke the story of the AZA expansion.

WE HAVE A NEW CLASS ACTION GROUP

AZA convinced a Missouri judge to certify a class action lawsuit for thousands of patients whose protected health information was illegally shared with Facebook and Google by their hospital system.

The judge’s order states that more than 90,000 patients could potentially be involved in the class, which deals with using password-protected patient portals maintained by their healthcare provider.

“This case can be expected to create significant ripple effects in healthcare privacy cases around the country,” said AZA partner Foster Johnson. “It is facially illegal for these hospitals to share their patient lists with companies like Facebook and Google, much less every webpage their patients visit and every action they take inside a patient portal, which reveals things such as the doctors patients are seeing, the appointments they are making and conditions they are being treated for.”

He explained that the defendant in this case and in similar privacy cases AZA is handling around the country knew that federal HIPAA laws restricted sharing patient data with Facebook and Google but did it anyway to obtain marketing benefits.

JUST A FEW BIG WINS FROM 2025

High stakes jury win for KBR

This $289 million high-stakes case for global technology and engineering giant Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) came to AZA well after it was filed and when it was headed to trial.  When AZA took the helm, the team had only a few months to get thousands of documents in Spanish translated and to the court 45 days before the new trial date.

A Harris County jury ruled in favor of AZA client KBR in May 2025 in the breach of contract case over $289 million in alleged lost profits and damages on a bid for a Mexican refinery build.

First firm to try and win a case in the new Texas business court

In early November, AZA became the first firm to try a case in a Texas Business Court. An energy sector client asked the court to find that force majeure created by Winter Storm Uri excused gas supply obligations. The business court judge agreed and found the client not liable for $26.5 million in damages.

In May, a federal jury in Houston found in favor of the same client in a lawsuit against Koch Energy Services over the delivery of natural gas during the February 2021 storm. In the process, AZA’s client prevailed on its declaratory judgement claim and defeated Koch’s $123.7 million counterclaim for breach of contract.

Federal jury in Marshall dings Samsung in patent case

After a five-day trial, a federal jury awarded AZA’s client Anonymous Media Research Holdings the full $78,512,999 requested from Samsung Electronics Co. for infringing on two patents.

AZA showed how Samsung improperly used two Anonymous Media patents covering methods for improving automatic content recognition to measure media consumption.

AZA’s IP practice head Jason McManis told reporters that Anonymous Media was founded by inventors Jonathan Steuer and Chris Otto, “two guys who had some really good ideas and worked really hard to get patents on it, only to be faced with an industry giant like Samsung using that technology without permission.” He said Samsung started using the patented process for targeted advertising.

AZA gets first-of its-kind influencer copyright case dismissed

Online influencer and AZA client Alyssa Sheil saw a highly publicized lawsuit against her dropped by influencer Sydney Gifford, who non-suited her claims and took nothing.

Ms. Sheil said the case claiming her largely beige and neutrals online fashion style was copied was frivolous. “This was about more than just me. This sets a precedent that young influencers can fight back and not give in to bullying,” said Ms. Sheil. “Ms. Gifford tried to intimidate me into leaving this industry. But she failed, and the truth prevailed.”

The lawsuit filed in April 2024 was recognized by the media as “the first of its kind.” The substantial media coverage included a New York Times Sunday cover story headlined and legal media commentators noting that the dispute could set a major legal precedent.