Supreme Court

April 26, 2023

Contact: Amy Starnes
Director of Public Affairs
512.463.1441 or email

AUSTIN — The Board of Law Examiners announced the three individuals who scored the highest on the February 2023 Texas Bar Exam. Two of the top scorers are already licensed in California, while one is a 2023 law school graduate.

According to the Texas Board of Law Examiners (BLE), 1,151 examinees took the February bar exam, and the overall pass rate was 44.6%. Although examinees’ scores are confidential, the Supreme Court of Texas liaison to the BLE, by tradition, asks the three highest scorers if they would like to be publicly recognized for their top results. Justice Brett Busby, the court’s liaison to the BLE, spoke to each of them shortly after the scores were released.

“The Supreme Court is extremely proud of the achievements of these amazing new Texas lawyers,” Justice Busby said. “We welcome them to the bar and wish them productive and fulfilling careers in the law.”

Peter Campbell Sode scored the highest of those who took the February exam. Sode is a native Texan and attorney at Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann in Dallas. Sode earned his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2018. He was admitted to the State Bar of California that same year and began his legal career at Winston & Strawn in Washington, D.C. After two years, Sode returned to Texas for a clerkship with the Hon. Kathleen Cardone of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in El Paso. He then completed a federal appellate clerkship with the Hon. Ronald M. Gould of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Seattle. Upon completing his clerkships, Sode joined Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann, where he does trial and appellate work.

Nikolai Hood, a 2023 graduate from Georgetown University Law Center, received the second-highest score on the February bar exam. Hood was an evening student at Georgetown while he worked as a legislative assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives. He worked as a summer associate for Holland & Knight in 2022.

Megumi Kenworthy, a 2008 graduate of Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School and member of the California bar, claimed the third-highest score on the Texas exam. Kenworthy moved to Sherman, Texas in 2015 with her husband and six boys. She began volunteering with a local immigration nonprofit, which led her to take the Texas bar exam with hopes of more fully serving her community.

The top scorers will be honored at the State Bar of Texas New Lawyers Induction Ceremony on May 15 at Bass Concert Hall in Austin.