Allow lawyers to advertise-Prof Richard Oppong

A Professor of Law at the California Western School of Law and a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, Prof Richard Frimpong Oppong has called for the removal of the restriction on lawyers advertisement.

According to him, the current regime of restriction limits access to justice in Ghana.

Speaking at Day One of the 55th Series of the JB Danquah Memorial Lecture, Prof. Oppong also argued that the positive effects of the advertisement of lawyers outweigh the negatives.

“I argue that access to justice is undermined by the current restrictions. The restrictions keep the public from being informed of the importance and availability of legal services. Moreover, the restrictions have constrained the development of some areas of Ghanaian law, especially personal injury law.”

“… access to justice suffers where lawyers cannot directly or freely speak to the general public about the legal services that they provide or the legal options that are available in response to problems confronting the general public. A member of the public who might not recognize a problem as a legal issue may come to that sober realization through the advertising of legal services. The recognition that a lawyer is required to solve a particular problem is an important part of justice delivery. In that sense, advertising serves an educational function. Social and other digital media can be powerful channels for such outreach.

Additionally, he indicated that the restriction of the advertisement of legal services prevents people from finding affordable legal help easily to address the issues that they face.

Moreover, Prof Oppong mentioned that by not proactively seeking out assistance for people in these situations through advertising, the legal system essentially asserts that people should suffer legal wrongs silently, rather than redressing these wrongs through legal action.

He, therefore, suggested the need for Ghana to look abroad as to the manner in which other legal systems deal with the advertising of legal services.

Whiles recognizing the argument that the removal of the restrictions may likely open the floodgates to legal imposters and sharp practitioners who pontificate as legal luminaries in areas of the law without any basis, he maintained that with sanctions from the GLC to weed out the few who abuse their trust and taking into account the comparative experiences of other countries, these excesses can be avoided.

“Some may argue that while such restrictions may seem anachronistic to progressives, removing them in the Ghanaian context is not likely to unleash motivated personal injury lawyers to secure justice for those who quietly suffer legal wrongs. Instead, it is more likely to open the floodgates to legal imposters and sharp practitioners who pontificate as legal luminaries in areas of the law without any basis.”

“These are legitimate concerns. However, I believe that within the framework proposed in this lecture, with sanctions from the GLC to weed out the few who abuse their trust and taking into account the comparative experiences of other countries, these excesses can be avoided.”