How Todd Mensing, Lawyer For Commercial Lenders, Turns Loan Defaults Into Judgments
When a commercial borrower stops paying and refuses to settle, the lender’s options narrow to one: prove the debt in court and collect on it. A June 2026 case shows what that looks like when it goes the distance. A Harris County lender represented by AZA won a $61.5 million judgment after a bench trial, recovering the full balance it claimed across multiple loan agreements. Todd Mensing, a lawyer board-certified in Civil Trial Law, tried the case with AZA lawyers lr Kyle Poelker and Justin Kenney.
For lenders, the result is a useful map of how loan-enforcement litigation actually works and what it takes to win it.
What A Lender Has To Prove
A defaulted commercial loan looks simple from the outside. The borrower signed, the borrower stopped paying, the lender wants its money. In a courtroom, the lender still has to prove each link in that chain. It must put the loan documents into evidence, establish that they are valid and enforceable, show that the borrower defaulted under their terms, and calculate the amount owed, often across several agreements that cross-reference one another. Where individuals guaranteed the debt, the lender proves the guaranties too, because a guaranty is a separate contract with its own defenses.
The June case ran across multiple loan documents originated in 2018. Judge Dawn Rogers awarded the lender the full balance on its breach claims, which means the lender carried that proof on every document the borrower had signed. None of it is automatic. A gap in the chain of agreements, an ambiguity in a default provision, or a missing signature can give a borrower room to argue, and a trial team has to close those gaps before the defenses even come into play.
The Defenses A Lender Has To Beat
A borrower who has stopped paying rarely concedes. By the time a loan dispute reaches trial, the borrower has usually assembled what lawyers call contractual and equitable defenses. Contractual defenses argue that the loan documents do not mean what the lender says, that a condition was not met, a provision is unenforceable, an interest rate is usurious, the loan was induced by fraud, or that the lender breached first. Equitable defenses, including waiver, estoppel, and unclean hands, argue that the lender’s own conduct should reduce or bar recovery regardless of what the documents say.
The patience point cuts both ways, and lenders should understand the risk. A lender that gives a struggling borrower time can later face the argument that it waived its rights by not enforcing them sooner, or that its forbearance lulled the borrower into relying on continued leniency. In the June case, the lender had extended exactly that kind of patience.
“Our client gave the debtor time to repay but finally had to file suit and is happy to finally get this fair ending,” Poelker said.
The judge rejected the borrower’s defenses and awarded the full balance. The lesson for lenders is that forbearance does not have to forfeit recovery, but it does invite defenses that a trial team has to be ready to defeat. The way a lender documents a period of patience, whether it reserves its rights in writing, whether it signs a formal forbearance agreement, often determines how much traction those defenses get at trial.
What A Complete Win Includes
A money judgment alone is not a complete result in loan litigation. The June judgment did three things, and lenders should expect to pursue all three.
It awarded the full claimed balance for breach of multiple loan documents. It included court declarations confirming the lender’s security interests, the collateral rights that govern whether and how the lender can collect. And it awarded $277,000 in attorneys’ fees.
The security-interest declarations are the part lenders most often undervalue. A judgment for the debt establishes that money is owed. Declarations on security interests establish the lender’s priority in the collateral, the position governed by Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, which determines whether the judgment is collectible when the borrower has other creditors competing for the same assets. A lender that wins the number but not the collateral position can find itself holding a judgment it cannot satisfy, standing in line behind creditors with better-perfected claims.
The fee award follows its own rules. Attorneys’ fees are recoverable in Texas only where a contract or statute authorizes them, so the $277,000 traces back to language in the loan documents or a statutory hook rather than to the size of the verdict. Well-drafted loan agreements include fee-shifting provisions for exactly this reason, and a lender that wins the debt but cannot recover its fees has spent part of its judgment getting there.
Why These Cases Go To A Judge
Many loan disputes that reach trial are heard by a judge rather than a jury, as the June case was. The choice suits the subject matter. Loan-enforcement cases turn on documents and contract interpretation, the questions a judge is equipped to decide. For a lender, a bench trial can mean a faster, more predictable path, decided by someone who reads the loan agreements the way the lender’s lawyers do and who is not swayed by a sympathetic borrower’s account of hard times.
That format rewards a particular kind of lawyer. Persuading a judge in a documents case means connecting each loan provision to the relief requested and dismantling the borrower’s defenses against the record rather than against sympathy. A lawyer who tries to win a documents case with the emotional appeals that move a jury tends to lose a judge who wants the contract language and the proof. It is precise work, and it is where a trial lawyer’s command of contract and secured-transactions law earns its keep.
What Lenders Should Take From It
AZA Law lists commercial lending and bankruptcy litigation among its practice areas, representing creditors and debtors alike. For a lender weighing whether to litigate a defaulted loan, the June result offers a few clear takeaways.
Document any period of patience, and reserve rights in writing, so forbearance does not harden into a waiver defense later. Confirm that the loan agreements carry fee-shifting language before a dispute arises, because that provision is what makes the cost of enforcement recoverable. Treat the collateral position as part of the case from the start, since a declaration on security interests is what turns a judgment into a collection. And recognize that a defaulted loan headed for trial is partly a question of counsel, because taking a nine-figure claim to judgment only makes sense if the trial team can prove breach across several agreements, defend the collateral, and absorb whatever defenses the borrower raises.
Mensing’s broader record reinforces the point. Chambers USA ranked him Band One in Texas general commercial litigation in 2026, citing his judgment and his habit of narrowing a case to its decisive arguments. In a loan-enforcement trial, narrowing the case to its decisive arguments is the skill that turns a defaulted loan into a collectible judgment.
