This year’s top scorers on the February Texas bar exam shared their experiences and preparation tips with The Texas Lawbook.
Though all three test-takers hold their impressive scores in common, each has followed a distinct path in their legal journeys. One is a mother of six who last took the bar exam in California in 2009. Another is a Dallas-native and former Division 1 athlete whose legal career has taken him coast-to-coast.
Bar scores are anonymous, but it is a tradition for the Texas Board of Law Examiners (BLE) to name and recognize the top three scorers with their permission. Their names and stories are below.
Campbell Sode
Before earning the highest score on the Texas bar exam in February, Campbell Sode’s goal was to simply be prepared enough to pass under even the worst circumstances.
“I never wanted to get a certain score — that wasn’t the mindset at all,” Sode said. “The only question I had was ‘Have I studied enough to the point where if I show up, and I’d had my worst day possible, am I going to pass?’”
Sode was born and raised in Dallas, but his education and career have taken him across the country. After playing Division I lacrosse at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Sode earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2018 and was barred in California that same year. Sode then went on to practice law in Washington, D.C. before pursuing clerkships with the Honorable Kathleen Cardone of the Western District of Texas in El Paso and the Honorable Ronald M. Gould of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Seattle.
“The first time [taking the bar], it’s fear of the unknown. I took a commercial bar prep course both times, and I remember the first time, I just did everything… I remember feeling totally overwhelmed,” Sode said. “The second time was very different for a couple reasons; I had done it before, but I studied while working full time, so it was a different set of challenges. But having taken the bar before, I knew the areas I needed to target to get ready much better.”
Now, Sode says he is very happy to be back in Dallas as an associate at Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann, where he will be doing trial and appellate work. One strategy that Sode claimed helped him succeed on the bar exam was seeing it as an opportunity to improve in his practice — particularly in the areas of evidence and civil procedure.
“Taking the bar for the second time is a challenge, and a lot of attorneys dread the thought of having to take the bar again. But one thing that really helped me was looking at it as a ‘let’s make lemonade out of lemons’ situation,” Sode said. “So, if you have to take the bar again it’s worth sitting down and telling yourself, ‘I have to go through this again, how can I use this to my advantage?’”
For now, Sode is focusing his energies on his career in Dallas, and is particularly excited to do more advocacy in court. In his first action since returning to Dallas, Sode is representing plaintiff OYO Hotels in a breach of contract bench trial.
“I never predetermine the opportunities that are going to show up, so I just try to do my best and take advantage of the opportunities that come to me,” Sode said. “If someone had told me in high school that I would go to college in New Jersey, I would have said you’re out of your mind. And then if you had told me in college that I would go to law school at UVA, I would have told you that you were crazy. But you can never read the future, and now I’m excited to see what opportunities will come and hopefully take advantage of them.”
Nikolai Hood
Nikolai Hood only had six weeks to study for the February exam after moving from Virginia to Texas in January. Despite the time crunch, Hood earned the second-highest score.
“[M]y daily schedule had to be quite intense, with eight-to-ten hour days and no weekends,” Hood said.
The Houston native is no stranger to a full docket. After graduating from Rice University, he worked as a legislative assistant in Washington, D.C. for a Houston congressman while earning his J.D. at Georgetown University Law Center as an evening student.
“Working for a Texas Representative meant that even when I was away from home, I still had a footprint in Texas,” said Hood, who graduated from Georgetown earlier this year.
Hood and his family were on vacation in Bolivia when bar exam results first came out. However, he didn’t realize that he’d received the second highest score until after he and his family had celebrated that he passed.
“When we got back to our hotel I saw that I’d gotten a call, and the voicemail said it was from Texas Justice Brett Busby, and that he had some exciting news to share,” Hood said. “So I called back as soon as I could and eventually got Justice Busby on the line, and he told me I’d gotten the second highest score. We were all quite elated at this further good news.”
Hood will be returning to Houston as an associate with Holland & Knight’s corporate section, where he also worked as a summer associate last year. Hood hopes to further his transactional skills when he begins work later this year.
“Nikolai did a great job during his summer at the firm,” Holland & Knight partner David Rusk said. “He always showed interest in his projects, and he took the initiative to ask for work when he needed it. He also followed up every time he turned in a project to request feedback. All in all, Nikolai was an exemplary summer associate and I look forward to him joining us later this year.”
Meg Kenworthy
“My first thought was ‘I didn’t have to study that much,’” joked Meg Kenworthy about receiving the call that she had earned the third-highest score on February’s exam. “I was just shocked.”
Kenworthy, a mother of six, had promised herself she would take the Texas bar by the time she turned 40 when she first moved to the state with her family in 2015. Yet, had it not been for the increasingly pressing need for an attorney to help with unaccompanied minor cases at the immigration nonprofit she currently volunteers at in Sherman, Kenworthy admitted she might have “chickened out.”
“It was especially meaningful after being a stay-at-home mom to know that I still have a lot to contribute,” Kenworthy said. “My brain has grown in other ways and in ways that the legal community doesn’t always recognize.”
Kenworthy was first admitted to the bar in California in 2009 after graduating from Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School in 2008. After working briefly in estate planning in California, she shifted her energy primarily toward raising her family.
“It had been so long since I’d taken an exam, I really had no idea how well I’d be able to do on an exam anymore,” Kenworthy said. “California doesn’t tell you your score, so I didn’t know if I had passed by one point or a hundred points the first time around. I approached it like I was starting from zero.”
Kenworthy began studying in November, and points to the support of her husband, children and friends as a “huge help” in her performance on the exam. Now as a member of the Texas bar, Kenworthy will be assisting Sherman’s Multicultural Family Center to represent and adjudicate cases for unaccompanied minors in the school district.
Kenworthy began volunteering with the organization late last year after a chance encounter with the center’s program director, Elias Soriano, at a school library event. After Soriano mentioned the center’s lack of legal resources to adjudicate immigration cases, Kenworthy said she was moved to act.
“I tell people it’s like the Spirit spoke through me,” Kenworthy said. “All of a sudden I heard myself saying ‘do you need legal help?’”
Soriano said that the center is honored to have Kenworthy working as a volunteer staff attorney.
“She worked intensely with so much passion to help the vulnerable immigrant population living in Grayson County,” Soriano said. “Her work has helped us build capacity for our New Americans Project by representing asylum seekers, refugees, children and families in immigration matters before the Immigration Court.”