Ghana’s new Legal Education Reform Bill will widen access to professional legal training without lowering standards, Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie has said, promising to tackle long-standing bottlenecks in the country’s legal system.
Speaking at the enrolment of 155 new lawyers to the bar, he described the legislation as a landmark step in resolving the ongoing tension between expanding opportunities and maintaining professional credibility.
“You are entering the legal profession at a moment of legal transition. For some time now, Ghana has struggled with a difficult balance: how to expand access to legal education while maintaining professional standards,” he said.
“The result has often been a tension between opportunity and credibility. We are now resolving that tension.”
Parliament passed the Legal Education Reform Bill on March 26, 2026. The law establishes a Council for Legal Education and Training, which will regulate legal education and set curriculum standards across institutions. A major feature is the transfer of professional legal training from the Ghana School of Law to accredited universities.
Under the new system, approved universities will offer a Law Practice Training Course to prepare candidates for a National Bar Examination, creating a uniform standard for professional qualification.
Chief Justice Baffoe-Bonnie said the framework will reduce institutional bottlenecks, address the backlog of students awaiting professional training, and strengthen the integrity of the qualification process through transparent, standardised assessments.
“The principle is simple: opportunity must be widened, but standards must be held firmly,” he added, underlining the law’s potential to modernise legal education and training in Ghana
