Todd Mensing spends most of his career trying commercial disputes: energy, intellectual property, construction, finance. He is a Houston-based partner at AZA Law, board certified in Civil Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, and has tried more than 60 cases across Texas state and federal courts. None of that points toward a capital murder trial. Mensing took one on anyway, without a fee, earlier this year. He worked it alongside his usual commercial calendar, not instead of it.

The case, State of Texas v. Johnson, gave Mensing courtroom experience his usual commercial docket rarely produces. A jury trial with a client’s liberty at stake, rather than a company’s balance sheet. He worked alongside Christian Capitaine, a Houston criminal defense lawyer, a pairing Mensing has used before when he takes on criminal matters outside his regular practice.

The defendant had spent close to a year in county jail, unable to post bond. He did not testify. Jurors returned deadlocked, splitting eight to five toward acquittal, and the court declared a mistrial. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office chose not to retry. That decision ended the case in the defendant’s favor. It also broke a 75-0 record the Harris County office had built trying capital murder cases.

For Mensing, the appeal of criminal trial work seems tied less to subject matter than to repetition: the number of trials a lawyer gets to run, and the range of pressure those trials create. Civil dockets increasingly resolve through settlement rather than verdict. That leaves fewer chances for litigators to sharpen courtroom instincts under real conditions. Pro bono criminal defense, paired with an experienced criminal lawyer who knows local procedure, gives a commercial litigator like Mensing a way to keep trying cases in front of juries even as his own practice produces fewer of them.