'Inherited legal education system not fit-for-purpose' - Ansa-Asare

A former Director of Legal Education, Kwaku Ansa-Asare, has called for a major reform in the training of lawyers in the country.

He suggested that the country’s current legal system may no longer be serving its purpose.

Speaking at a public lecture in Accra, the legal scholar said the nation’s legal education framework, largely inherited from the English system, has failed to keep pace with Ghana’s changing social and economic realities.

“We inherited a model we did not understand and which had no socio-economic relevance to our circumstances,” Ansa-Asare said.

Delivering the lecture at MountCrest University College, he painted a picture of a system at a crossroads, one that risks weakening the delivery of justice if urgent reforms are not pursued.

According to him, attempts at reform will fall short unless deeper structural issues are addressed, especially the long-standing bottlenecks that prevent many law graduates from progressing from academic study to professional qualification.

“We have not honestly confronted the issues that call for reform. The problem has always been one of a system in search of solutions,” he said.

He also raised concerns about the influence of politics on legal education.

He contended that competing interests within political spaces have slowed down meaningful reform and left critical problems unresolved.

At the heart of his argument is what he described as a disconnect between theory and practice.

While universities focus on academic training, institutions like the Ghana School of Law concentrate on procedural skills, creating a gap that many students struggle to bridge.

“At the academic stage, you are taught where to find the law, but at the professional stage, you are taught how to apply it. The two are fundamentally different,” he said.

To address this, Ansa-Asare is advocating for stronger clinical legal education, an approach that allows students to gain hands-on experience by working on real cases under supervision, much like medical training.

“Students must be allowed to learn by doing, just as medical students are trained through practical exposure,” he said.

He believes that while some reforms are underway, including the introduction of clinical training earlier in legal education, more needs to be done to build a system tailored specifically to Ghana’s needs.

“Either we craft our own model, or we continue to operate a system that does not serve our national interest,” he said.

Adding an international perspective, Carl Stychin, Director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London, shared lessons from the United Kingdom.

He noted that while access to legal education had expanded, opportunities for professional training had not kept up the pace.

“Our LLB degree was growing exponentially. Bigger and bigger numbers of students, but only a small number would ever join the profession,” he said.

He also pointed to the growing commercialisation of legal education, where students are increasingly treated as consumers, a shift that has influenced how programmes are delivered and regulated.

“This is as much a cautionary tale as anything,” he said.

On the policy front, Abdul-Rashid Pelpuo, Minister of Labour, Jobs and Employment, expressed optimism that ongoing reforms will ease some of the long-standing frustrations faced by law students, particularly repeated failures in professional exams.

“We will ensure that students do not go through this process of writing exams and failing repeatedly,” he said.

The lecture formed part of MountCrest’s thought leadership series, bringing together legal practitioners, academics and students to reflect on the future of the profession and the direction of reforms.

A major shift is already underway following the passage of the Legal Education Reform Act 2025 earlier this year.

The bill introduces sweeping changes, including ending the monopoly of the Ghana School of Law on professional training.

Under the new system, accredited universities will offer a one-year Bar Practice Programme, after which candidates will sit a centralised National Bar Exam.

The reforms also remove the traditional entrance examination and introduce a more standardised assessment model, similar to that used in accountancy training.

NA/VPO

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