Before Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing partner Monica Uddin graduated, she felt her ability to persuade people and figure out arguments, skills honed during high school debate, could translate into a career in the law.
“I thought that might be the thing I was the best at,” she said. “So, law seemed the natural fit.”
That feeling was cemented during her time at Stanford University, where she studied symbolic systems, a degree described by the school as a “unique program” that combines computer science, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, psychology and statistics. Uddin, who earned her degree in the field in 2007, said it didn’t feel like the right fit.
So, the San Antonio native who is the daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants enrolled in the University of Chicago Law School, graduated in 2010, and returned to Texas, where she has been a practicing lawyer at AZA in Houston ever since. She is also the firm’s hiring partner.
While at AZA, she represented the musician Drake in his lawsuit accusing Universal Music of promoting a Kendrick Lamar song at the cost of his music in 2024.
Uddin also appeared on NBC News with her client Mary Kate Cornett, an Ole Miss freshman who was the subject of false rumors that spread across social media and were amplified by ESPN’s Pat McAfee.
Uddin recently sat down with The Texas Lawbook to discuss her first trial and what being a hiring partner looks like for her. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Lawbook: What trends are you seeing in your practice area?
Uddin: I think to me the biggest issue of the day is AI. So, how you handle uses that pertain to things you would file, but also, for me — and this aspect that I am finding even more interesting — is how to use it in our normal workflow, and then how it changes the character of the job. So as a trial lawyer, I feel we’re a little privileged in that ChatGPT cannot open or close. Although it can help you do those things, it can’t actually replace you. But it’s been very interesting watching the legal field meet AI and constantly seeing things that are probably AI-related in other people’s briefs. It’s really interesting to see how the courts handle it, and it’s fun to be on a new frontier.
Lawbook: What has been a memorable experience or moment in your career?
Uddin: I remember my first trial very clearly. I was representing the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office, and I was putting up some deputies, and I had a witness call me drunk the night before and tell me all about what he was going to say. And he had some new information that I was really excited to use in his questioning the next day, and then he got on the stand and acted like he had no idea about what I was talking about. And my sort of surprise, I think, is one of the biggest memories that I think I have. But being like, ‘oh man, witnesses, they’re rough,’ was my first trial memory.
Another, I was in a trial where I had this complicated QuickBooks demonstration that I’d worked out with my expert, and we tested it, and it worked fine, and it really revealed something big in the case. And then when we were in the courtroom, the hookup between the computer and the court screen didn’t work, and so I had to do it on paper. And so, I just walked up and started like writing on a notepad, but it was a software demonstration. It was very hard to replicate on paper, but I figured it out. It worked fine.
Lawbook: Do you have a pre-trial ritual?
Uddin: I listen to DMX.
Lawbook: On the other side of that, do you have a post-trial celebration?
Uddin: I try not to go to work for a little bit, and now I have kids, so I want to see my kids, but I also want to take a really long bath while watching a television show.
Lawbook: What was it like representing Drake and handling other high-profile cases?
Uddin: It’s weird to have anyone care more about your sort of day-to-day work when the work itself is not really different. There’s just this added media component to it. I get letters and stuff in the mail, or really weird DMs. All of a sudden, sometimes people will be talking about you on Twitter. That’s weird, but the work itself is the same, and it’s weird what makes people pay attention and what doesn’t.
Lawbook: What sticks out to you the most when hiring for the firm?
Uddin: I think we have a really particular office culture, and generally, by the time people get to me, their credentials are correct, and so it’s just trying to figure out who would be a good fit for the AZA workplace.
Lawbook: What kind of cases do you like the most?
Uddin: When I was in law school, I kind of thought that you could either go on like a plaintiff’s path where you would like to do good, or you could represent defendants and choose to make money. The idea that those were completely divergent. And of course that was silly, and everything is a lot more gray, right? So I really enjoy plaintiff’s work.
But the notion that I had in law school, that there were no human stories and [only] dry business in business litigation, that was nuts. That was a silly thought to have.
We have big trade secret litigation. We’re representing a company, but you’re also sitting across the table from an engineer who is like this is my actual life’s work. They took my life’s work. We had a real dry, big contract case where the subject matter of the contract was not that interesting, but the guy who was in charge of doing the project had just been diagnosed with leukemia, and so he was disconnecting from chemo at the [Texas] Medical Center and then driving all the way down, overseeing this project in an industrial area, and his poor staff were like Clorox wiping like everything they could, in this refinery.
There’s a human story in almost every dispute, and I would tell my younger self to hang on for that.
Lawbook: What are some of your hobbies?
Uddin: I’m learning to ski at the age of 41 as an unathletic person, and I think that’s probably like the biggest out-of-work project. I like to say that eating and drinking are my primary hobby, but I really like restaurants and nice cocktails, and I’m a big horror fiction fan, whether it’s books or television shows or podcasts. Oh, I also like board games.
If you or someone you know would like to be profiled in a future edition of Asked & Answered, please let us know at tlblitigation@texaslawbook.net. Check out our other Asked & Answered interviews below:
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Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann’s Mary Goodrich Nix looks back on her early years as a trial lawyer. She also shares advice she would give to young lawyers and discusses trends she sees impacting the practice.
FBFK’s Solomon Wisenberg talks about how he got involved in the Whitewater-Lewinsky investigation and what trends he is seeing in his white collar criminal defense practice. While the Texan spent most of his career in Washington, D.C., he returned home to the Lone Star state a few years ago and joined FBFK in December.
Third Court of Appeals Justice Rosa Lopez Theofanis shares how she sees AI impacting the appellate process and dishes on what lawyers practicing before her shouldn’t do. Justice Theofanis, who is the first sitting judge to participate in Asked & Answered, joined the all-female panel in January 2023. King & Spalding partner Bruce Hurley reflected on his career and being recently named trial lawyer of the year by the Texas chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates. Hearing stories from family who were trial lawyers