By Texas created a court in 2024 for the express purpose of handling complex commercial disputes, and it has now run long enough to show how it works. AZA Law won the first two trials held in that court, a record the firm’s leadership has cited as commercial litigation in the state migrates into the new forum. Understanding why those wins matter requires understanding what the Texas Business Court is and why businesses are increasingly ending up there.
A court built for business disputes
The Texas Business Court opened in September 2024 to hear high-dollar commercial cases that previously landed in general district courts alongside everything else on a busy civil docket. The court draws specialized judges, applies the procedures suited to complex litigation, and feeds appeals into a dedicated appellate court. The design borrows from the business-court models other states have used to give corporate disputes a more predictable venue.
The early caseload confirms the demand. In its first year, 185 cases were filed in the Texas Business Court, nearly half in the Eleventh Division in Houston and about a quarter in the First Division in Dallas. The court issued 42 opinions in that first year and another 29 in the first six months of its second, a pace that reflects both rising filings and judges working through the procedural and jurisdictional questions a new court has to settle.
From procedure to verdicts
The court’s first phase was dominated by threshold questions: what falls within its jurisdiction, how cases get transferred in, which disputes belong elsewhere. By early 2026, those questions had thinned out and the court had reached what one analysis called cruising altitude, with most decisions addressing the merits of disputes rather than the mechanics of the forum.
The first 18 months also produced the court’s procedural firsts: its first bench trial, its first jury trials, and its first directed verdict. One of the more closely watched results came when a judge ruled for Marathon Oil after a four-day trial, declaring that the company did not owe Mercuria Energy America $17.4 million for failing to deliver natural gas during Winter Storm Uri, on a finding that Marathon made reasonable efforts to manage the force majeure event. The decision showed the court resolving exactly the kind of high-value commercial dispute it was created to handle.
Why AZA’s early wins carry weight
A firm that wins the first trials in a new court holds a credential no competitor can match, and the reason runs deeper than bragging rights. A new forum has no settled playbook. The lawyers trying its first cases are working out how its judges run a trial, what they expect from the evidence, and how the unfamiliar procedures play in practice. Getting that right with no precedent to follow is harder than trying a case in a court with decades of established custom.
AZA’s wins also fit the migration the court was built to capture. Complex commercial litigation, the high-dollar contract and business-tort cases that turn on detailed records, is increasingly routed to the Business Court. For a firm whose practice centers on exactly those disputes, being first and successful in the venue where they will now be heard is a direct advantage. The firm’s managing partner framed the early record around that shift, noting that “a lot of the complex commercial litigation in the state is migrating” into the new courts.
What businesses should know about the forum
For companies and their general counsel, the Texas Business Court changes the calculation around where a dispute will be decided. A complex commercial case that once shared a docket with routine civil matters may now be heard by a judge who handles business litigation full time, on a track designed for it. That can mean closer attention to the contract language and the financial record, and a more predictable path than a crowded general docket offers.
It also raises the stakes on choosing counsel. A specialized court rewards lawyers who understand both the substance of complex commercial disputes and the still-forming practice of the forum itself. AZA partner Todd Mensing, who led a $205 million defense win in the court and presented a continuing legal education program on the Business Court in 2026, is among the lawyers building that experience as the court matures.
The Texas Business Court is no longer an experiment. It is a working venue with a year of opinions, a growing caseload, and a set of procedural firsts behind it. For Texas businesses, the practical question is no longer whether their next major dispute might land there, but who can try it once it does. AZA’s answer is a record that started with the court’s first two trials.
