7 things to know about the upcoming legal education reform in Ghana

Ghana’s legal education ecosystem is on the cusp of a structural reset. The Legal Education Reform Bill, 2025, which is currently before parliament, proposes a re-engineered pipeline for training, qualifying, and enrolling lawyers, with a clear emphasis on standardisation, quality assurance, and practice-readiness. 

The bill’s memorandum traces today’s bottlenecks to the current framework under the Legal Profession Act, 1960 (Act 32), which combines the governance of legal education with the governance of legal practice. The result, it argues, is two-fold: professional legal education and training is “largely unregulated,” and the same institutional structure is tasked with regulating both education and professional conduct. 

At its core, the bill identifies seven key institutional and procedural structures that will drive the reform agenda. Here is what stakeholders need to know.

1. Council for Legal Education and Training

At the apex of the new framework is the Council for Legal Education and Training, positioned as the system’s strategic regulator and quality gatekeeper. The Council will accredit universities to provide legal education and training, collaborate with the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) to set accreditation benchmarks, and oversee professional and practical training for prospective lawyers. It will also prescribe courses of study, advise the Government on legal education policy, recommend national standards, and ensure Ghana’s legal training remains aligned with analogous legal systems.

2. Law Degree Programme (LL.B)

The LL.B program is formalised as the foundational academic track. It will be administered through clearly defined institutional leadership structures, including a Dean and supporting administrative officers. Admission standards must be uniform nationwide and approved by the Council, with entry determined through transparent entrance examinations or other approved methods. Eligibility extends to WASSCE holders and graduates with at least a Second Class Lower degree from accredited universities. The Council, working with universities, will develop a comprehensive curriculum, and the LL.B will run for a fixed duration of three academic years.

3. Law Practice Training Course (Accreditation Regime)

Under the reform, universities may only offer the Law Practice Training Course if they are duly accredited. The Council, in collaboration with GTEC, will set the accreditation criteria, assessing factors such as library resources (including digital access), physical infrastructure, and student–lecturer ratios. Institutions that operate without accreditation commit an offence and face statutory sanctions. The framework introduces a phased approach, allowing provisional accreditation but requiring full accreditation within two years.

4. Law Practice Training (Practical Year)

The Bill introduces a mandatory one-year law practice training as a bridge between theory and qualification. This stage is designed to deepen practical competence through active engagement in law firms, clerkships with appellate judges, observation within administrative agencies, and the provision of legal services on an ad hoc basis to the needy. Completion of this training is a prerequisite for eligibility to sit the National Bar Examination.

5. National Bar Examination

The National Bar Examination becomes the central assessment and quality filter. Only candidates who hold an LL.B and have completed the Law Practice Training may sit the exams. The examinable areas include Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Advocacy, Ethics and Practice of Law, as well as Conveyancing and Drafting. Candidates who do not pass are permitted to resit, reinforcing both rigour and fairness in the qualification process.

6. Ghana School of Law

The role of the Ghana School of Law is recalibrated rather than eliminated. Under the proposed framework, the School will administer Post-Call Law Courses and provide remedial programmes for candidates who wish to resit the National Bar Examination. This positions the institution as a post-qualification support and capacity-building hub.

7. Enrolment on the Roll of Lawyers

The final gate is enrolment on the Roll of Lawyers. Eligibility extends to Ghanaian candidates who have completed the full pathway—LL.B, Law Practice Training, and successful completion of the National Bar Examination. The framework also accommodates persons from jurisdictions with analogous legal systems, as well as post-call candidates from the Ghana School of Law, subject to the Bill’s requirements.