Academic Achievement

You can aim even higher. We’ll help you every step of the way.

Law school is tough, but you’re tougher. As first year students quickly learn, law school is a one-of-a-kind academic challenge. You’ve studied. You’ve sacrificed. You’ve burned the midnight oil. But nothing can quite prepare you for the journey you’ve chosen to undertake.

We know that students arrive on campus with assorted backgrounds, diverse skills, and various learning styles. We embrace that diversity, offering opportunities that cultivate success.

Academic Achievement is your extremely supportive pit crew. We teach, administer, and coordinate various academic programs designed to maximize your performance — both in law school and on the bar exam.

Study for Success

Academic Achievement is excited to provide every student with the academic guidance they need to have a positive experience during law school. Study for Success is designed to help first year students successfully transition to law school and improve their law-specific academic skills. 

We’ve developed effective resources to help you achieve your best academic success, including one-on-one academic counseling, voluntary skills workshops, review sessions, peer tutoring, and credit courses.

1L Summer P(r)ep Rally

Entering 1L students have the option of attending a voluntary one-day workshop. In addition to celebrating the achievement of being accepted to law school, we will introduce new students to the specific academic skills they need to succeed in law school. We’ll also offer tried-and-true strategies for managing the difficult transition to the Socratic method as applied to 1L curriculum. The workshop is traditionally held prior to New Student Orientation. More information on the date and time of the workshop will be sent to each student.

Foundational Skills Workshops Series

This helpful series provides law students an opportunity to learn about the skills required for law school success beyond the critical reasoning skills developed in the classroom. Workshops are held throughout the academic year and cover topics such as case briefing, outlining, study habits, preparing for exams, and more. All 1L students are encouraged to attend the workshops in order to develop and master these essential law school skills.

Academic Fellows’ Sessions

Students meet every two weeks to review substantive concepts and develop the study skills needed to be successful in law school. Each group is led by an Academic Fellow, an upper-class student who has excelled in law school. Fellows Sessions give you the ability to assess your progress, refine your skills, and receive supplemental instruction and feedback throughout your first year of law school.

Conquer the Bar

After graduation, most students seek a career as an attorney. Passing the bar is a necessary step to meeting that goal. That’s why we created Conquer the Bar, a robust preparatory program to help students pass the bar in any state.

This program begins your final year of law school and includes:

  • A year-long sequence of for-credit courses
  • Essay writing preparation
  • Multiple-choice testing strategies
  • Lectures
  • Practice tests

Conquer the Bar doesn’t end at graduation. From mid-May until the end of July, graduates work diligently at memorizing legal principles and practicing exam questions. After participating in this rigorous program, the majority of our graduates do indeed conquer the bar!

The Oklahoma Bar Exam

Registering for the Oklahoma Bar Exam

Oklahoma has a two-step process to apply for the Oklahoma Bar Examination:

  1. Register as a law student with the Oklahoma Board of Bar Examiners;
  2. File an application to take a specific administration of the bar examination.

Registering as a law student can save you money. Registering in Oklahoma also fulfills one requirement for participation in the Licensed Legal Intern program. For information and an application, contact: Board of Bar Examiners, 1901 N. Lincoln Blvd, P.O. Box 53036, Oklahoma City, OK 73152-3036, (405) 416-7075 or view the applications page.

Scoring Information

Oklahoma has recently adopted NCBE’s Uniform Bar Exam which contains the MEE, MPT, and MBE. The UBE cutoff score for Oklahoma is 264 (scaled), which is considered passing. A MPRE scaled score of 80 is required.

OBA Information

The Oklahoma Bar Association is the governing body of Oklahoma’s lawyers.

Reciprocity

Oklahoma has reciprocity with many other jurisdictions, some of which require the MPRE and some of which do not. Colorado and Texas, for example, require the MPRE. The District of Columbia, Missouri, and Virginia are among the 15 that do not require the MPRE. More information is available at the Oklahoma Bar Association. Since Oklahoma adopted the UBE, students who sit in Oklahoma may port their scores to any jurisdiction where eligible.

First Year Law Students and the Bar Exam

Entering first-year students are strongly advised to communicate with bar admission agencies in all jurisdictions in which they may wish to practice law to determine the requirements for admission to the bar of those jurisdictions. Some state bar licensing authorities require or permit law students to register as part of their licensing procedures. (If so, there are likely financial implications to the decision to register as a law student in the jurisdiction.) The Oklahoma deadline for early registration is October 15th of the 2L year.

Students are advised that most states require applicants to have graduated from an ABA-accredited law school, to pass a written bar examination, and to demonstrate that they possess the requisite “moral character and fitness” to practice law. Any information that reflects adversely upon the character or fitness of an applicant, such as criminal proceedings, may be treated as cause for further investigation. Bar examiners in some jurisdictions also address mental health and chemical or psychological dependency matters.

The National Conference of Bar Examiners produces a Comprehensive Guide to Bar Admission Requirements that contains tables for quick reference on the components of each jurisdiction’s bar exam. The National Conference of Bar Examiners also aggregates links to state bar examining agencies and provides information on all multistate tests used in various jurisdictions. For students planning to apply to the Oklahoma Bar, visit the Oklahoma Board of Bar Examiners for necessary information.

MPRE Prep

The Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE) is required by most jurisdictions. It consists of 60 multiple-choice questions testing an applicant’s knowledge of the professional standards contained within the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the Model Rules of Judicial Conduct, and the relevant case law.

The MPRE is administered three times per year and can be taken before a student graduates from law school. Full details regarding this exam can be found at the National Conference of Bar Examiners.

Oklahoma City University School of Law requires all students to take Legal Profession as part of their lockstep course work. Additionally, several review opportunities are hosted on campus in the month preceding the Spring and Fall administration of the MPRE exam. Further details about those review opportunities will be emailed to the student body.

Essay Prep

Every state bar exam includes essay questions similar to law school final exams. However, most states only allow 30 minutes to answer questions students answered in 45 minutes to an hour in law school. Bar exam essay questions require modifications to writing skills learned in law school, so Academic Achievement created a specialized program for writing bar exam essays.

The first component of our essay training begins the last year of law school. During a student’s final year of law school, we highly encourage enrolling in Advanced Bar Studies I and II, a 3 credit-hour sequence designed to improve essay writing and multiple-choice test taking skills. The courses are NOT a substitute for commercial bar review courses or the voluntary Conquer the Bar MBE program. Advanced Bar Studies mainly focuses on essay writing by utilizing multiple techniques for learning. Students will hear lectures, practice numerous essay questions, evaluate exam answers, and continually re-write their own responses. The multiple teaching strategies help solidify the skills needed to Conquer the Bar!

The second component of essay preparation is practice exams. After the first four weeks of bar review, the Department holds approximately five Oklahoma practice essay exams at the law school, and we email practice exams to all the out-of-state examinees. All of the Oklahoma exams and the majority of the out-of-state exams are actual bar exam questions from that jurisdiction. Each student who completes an exam receives individualized feedback through either face-to-face meetings or an email with comments on the answer. The focus is to both continually learn the law required and practice the special essay writing techniques. Continued practice generally helps students reach their maximum potential on the exam.

The last way to prepare for the essay portion of the exam is individual practice. We encourage students to write out at least one exam answer each time a subject is studied. We also provide feedback on those answers. The following is a list of places to find bar exam questions to practice for different jurisdictions:

Oklahoma Bar Examination Questions

The questions below have been posted with the kind permission of the Oklahoma Board of Bar Examiners.

Oklahoma essay questions from 1987 to the present are available in the OCU Law Library at #KFO1276 .O52 (Oklahoma Collection, SE 2nd Floor).

Links for essay questions provided by other jurisdictions can be found in the “Other States’ Bar Exams” section below.

MBE Prep

Forty-nine of fifty states administer the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE). Louisiana is the only state to exclude the MBE from their bar exams. The MBE is a 200-question multiple-choice exam covering seven subjects: Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Evidence, Property, and Torts. The test is administered the same way on the same day nationwide. You receive three hours to complete 100 questions in the morning and three hours to complete 100 questions in the afternoon.

Although the answer is always on the page in a multiple-choice exam, most students believe the MBE is the most difficult portion of the bar exam. The subjects tested are taught during the first three semesters of law school, and the fact patterns test legal principles in depth. OCU Law’s Conquer the Bar program focuses on the MBE. During the last semester of law school, students receive lectures covering the majority of the MBE topics. The substantive lectures provide great groundwork for bar preparation during the summer.

The essential component to successfully completing the MBE is practice questions. Academic Achievement recommends doing MBE practice questions daily during the summer, and multiple practice exams with analysis are administered at the law school. Supplemental lectures are also provided for MBE topics. The combination of pre-bar review lectures, numerous practice questions, and review lectures during the summer teach the necessary skills to pass the MBE.

If you are not taking the Oklahoma Bar Exam, out-of-state graduates are not left out of the process either. The study recommendations are created for each jurisdiction in which a student is taking the bar exam.

For more information regarding the MBE, please visit the National Conference of Bar Examiners.

Other States’ Bar Exams

If you are considering practicing in a jurisdiction other than Oklahoma, it is extremely important to find out the particular requirements for bar admission in that jurisdiction as soon as you can. The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) provides a Comprehensive Guide to Bar Admission Requirements that serves as a good starting place in comparing the requirements of different jurisdictions. Additionally, the American Bar Association provides links to the various state bar admission offices and offers information about each state bar exam.

Sample essay questions and information from the various states can be found at the following two locations:

La Prensa and Spanish for Lawyers

The bilingual publication, La Prensa, was created to provide diverse students a platform to express opinions on pertinent topics and analyze holdings relevant to people within the minority community. After extensive training and through a selective process, individuals from all law school levels can publish a case comment and their unique experiences within the law school and the legal profession. The publication may include a small synopsis of the students’ Spanish submissions to display their Spanish writing skills. The overall publication itself is written in English to target a broader audience. La Prensa is a logical extension of the Spanish for Lawyers Advanced Communication program.

Need help? We’re here for you.

Steven Foster

Steven Foster

Instructor of Law
Director of Academic Achievement
(405) 208-5495
sfoster@okcu.edu

Ashley N. McCord

Assistant Director of Academic Achievement
(405) 208-5681
anmccord@okcu.edu