The Dean of the Faculty of Accounting and Finance at the University of Professional Studies, Prof. Isaac Boadi, has welcomed the passage of the Legal Education Reform Bill, describing it as a necessary step to address longstanding challenges in Ghana’s legal education system.
His comment comes amid Parliament’s passing of the Legal Education Bill, 2025, marking a historic reform in Ghana’s legal education system.
The legislation, which is now headed to the president for assent, ends the Ghana School of Law’s long-standing monopoly over professional legal training and opens the sector to accredited universities across the country.
Speaking on the JoyNews AM Show on March 27, Prof. Boadi said the previous structure had existed for years but created significant limitations.
“It’s been in existence for a long time; that’s been the structure we’ve had over the years, where the Ghana Law School has been the only institution passing out these lawyers,” he said.
He added that while the system had endured, reform was necessary.
“The monopoly was a bit too harsh, but the point is that it is a good call. Whenever a law is passed, it means some bottlenecks have been identified, and there is a need for a review,” he stated.
Prof. Boadi pointed to the gap between the number of law graduates and those who progress to professional training.
“We’ve had brilliant students who have been rejected, and if you look at the population-to-lawyer ratio, it is not the best,” he noted.
“You graduate about 5,000 LLB students, hypothetically, and maybe only 1,000 qualify to law school to become lawyers. That is a huge bottleneck,” he explained.
He said expanding access could help improve the situation, but warned against equating it with improved quality.
“When we have expansion, it allows more people to be trained as lawyers and could reduce the ratio, but we need to check this,” he cautioned. “An expansion of universities offering LLB programmes is not equivalent to expansion of professional training capacity,” he stressed.
Prof. Boadi further warned that increasing numbers alone do not guarantee competence.
“The fact that we have a lot of lawyers does not mean that sometimes they are efficient enough or have been trained enough,” he said.
Drawing a comparison with the wider education sector, he added: “If we open more schools, a more roll out, how many of them get jobs? So in terms of capacity, efficiency is not the same.”
He therefore urged that quality assurance must remain central as the reforms are implemented.
“As much as we are opening the door to allow universities to train, we must ensure those who come out are efficient and able to deal with the issues in our country,” he said.
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