There are many different preparation routes one can take to ensure a really high score on the Texas bar exam. Phillip Cooper’s just happened to involve a city bus.

Cooper won the top mark on the July exam by scoring 884 out of a possible 1,000 points. What made that top score even more remarkable is that Cooper graduated from an out of state law school, the University of Chicago Law School, in 2017.

“So, it was a bit of steep learning curve because of the Texas specific stuff,” Cooper said. “Once you get a framework it all falls into place. But there’s no substitute for spending the time studying.’’

While most law students prefer to sequester themselves indoors for intense rounds of studying, Cooper did the opposite by going outside. Every afternoon, he caught a city bus from his apartment in South Chicago for a 30 minute ride downtown. Once he arrived near the Kirkland & Ellis office, where his girlfriend Grace Bridwell works as a tax associate, he’d sit on a bench under a tree alongside the Chicago River with a book and wait for her to get off work.

Read more at Texas Lawyer