If the external jar is created by a Maven project only then you can copy the entire project on your system and run a
mvn install
in the project directory. This will add the jar into .m2 directory which is local maven repository.
Now you can add the
<dependency>
<groupId>copy-from-the=maven-pom-of-existing-project</groupId>
<artifactId>copy-from-the=maven-pom-of-existing-project</artifactId>
<version>copy-from-the=maven-pom-of-existing-project</version>
</dependency>
This will ensure that you
mvn exec:java
works. If you use suggested here
<scope>system</scope>
Then you will have to add classes individually while using executing through command line.
You can add the external jars by the following command described here
mvn install:install-file -Dfile=<path-to-file> -DgroupId=<group-id> \
-DartifactId=<artifact-id> -Dversion=<version> -Dpackaging=<packaging>