Required Courses
1000 Orientation (Half-day free seminar)
This seminar gives those who may be interested in a career as a legal assistant, or paralegal, the opportunity to find out about the profession and the opportunities available in the field. This is a great orientation for beginning legal-assistant students.
1013 Introduction to Law (Three Saturdays)
Survey of the legal system and the role of the legal assistant. This course is a prerequisite to all other courses and provides the student with a background for the courses which follow in The University of Oklahoma legal-assistant program.
1023 Legal Analysis (Three Saturdays)
Prerequisite to Legal Writing.
Emphasis is on the structure of a legal memorandum. Covers the use of effective writing style and use of Oklahoma
legal research materials. Students will also learn how to brief a case. It is strongly recommended that this course
be completed in the student's first semester of study.
1033 Legal Research (Three Saturdays)
Prerequisite to Legal Writing.
Covers use of state and federal statutes, court reporters, encyclopedias, annotations, digests, Shepard's,
periodicals, legislative history sources, and administrative law materials.
1243 Legal Writing (Three Saturdays)
Requires Legal Analysis and Legal Research.
Presentation of guidelines for effective advisory and argumentative writing as applied to pleadings, briefs,
legal memorandums, and other types of legal writing.
1083 Civil Procedure I (Three Saturdays)
Prerequisite to Civil Procedure II.
This course will emphasize the selection of a proper forum, analysis of jurisdiction and venue requirements, both
state and federal; determination of necessary parties; preparation of pleadings required in civil litigation,
including petitions, motions, answers, counterclaims, and set-offs, as well as post-judgment procedures. Students
will make a trial notebook that will also be used in Civil Procedure II.
2083 Civil Procedure II (Three Saturdays)
Require Civil Procedure I.
A continuation of Civil Procedure I, using the trial notebook from that course. The course covers preparation for a
civil trial. It includes gathering and organizing evidence by investigation and discovery methods and contact with
client and parties. Federal and state court discovery methods and organization for effective presentation at trial
are studied.
2252 Computerized Legal Research (Two Saturdays)
Requires Legal Research.
Computer-assisted legal research. An introductory course to familiarize students with the computerized legal
research systems. Students will receive training in the effective use of search strategies to enhance their legal
research capabilities.
2093 Evidence (Three Saturdays)
Oklahoma and Federal Rules of Evidence will be surveyed in order to familiarize students with the types of evidence which will and will not be admissible in court and objections which may be made during discovery and in pretrial orders to proposed evidence.
2042 Law Practice Management (Two Saturdays)
Course will provide the student with knowledge of the industry (including the legal marketplace, the legal team, personnel relations, and client relations), provide the student with knowledge of how a law office functions (including legal fees, timekeeping, billing, and financial management), and provide the student with essential skills (including law office systems, docket control systems, records management, file management, and law library management).
1043 Professional Ethics (Three Saturdays)
Ethics permeate all activities of a lawyer. This course will examine the extent of the legal assistant's ethical responsibility and enable the legal assistant to:
- Identify ethical parameters of the legal profession.
- Research applicable statutes, rules and case law.
- Apply that body of law to practical situations.