A love letter to part 2 students of the Ghana school of law

Dear Part 2 student,

Wow, you are finally here. You are just a year away from being called to the Bar as a lawyer. The journey has been tough, but you have persevered and here you are!

At this point in your study, you must be very proud of yourself, oh yes, because you have trod the path that many faint-hearted and timorous souls have not dared to. Accept my biggest congratulations for successfully going through Part 1. Even if you fell casualty to some courses in Part 1 and you had to resit some papers or still have papers to resit, you must be very proud of yourself that you have finally made it to Part 2. The number of papers or times you rewrite Part 1 papers can never take away the joy of making it to Part 2. So, I want you to pause for a moment, give yourself a pat at the back and say to yourself, ‘’I am almost there”.

Note however, that these introductory commendations are not to get you to feel complacent or relaxed, but rather to challenge you to give Part 2 your last and hardest push. If Part 1 was tough, then I am sad to inform you that Part 2 will stretch you beyond yourself but you are capable of overcoming it and you shall overcome it!

Before I proceed, let me draw your attention to a delusion that often comes with Part 2, which is the feeling that you are doing ‘’only” four courses and so it will not be as stressful as Part 1. I urge you to disabuse your mind of this delusion right away. I remember when I was in Part 1 preparing towards my end-of-year exams, my seniors in Part 2 were also preparing towards their exams and on one occasion, I found myself learning at the Makola campus with the seniors. I still recall the way I felt when they told me they were writing four papers.

I felt as though they were not as busy as I was since I was preparing towards writing the six papers (or better still seven papers when you split Accounting and Law Practice Management) in Part 1. It was not until I started Part 2 that I began to have ‘’holy fear’’ for Part 2. The four courses you do in Part 2, namely, Law of Interpretation, Conveyancing and Drafting, Family Law and Practice and Advocacy and Legal Ethics, are like eight courses compressed into four. Each of these courses is bulky and demands a lot and so I urge you to have the right attitude from scratch.

In this Article, I share with you lessons from Part 2 and I believe they will help you navigate your way through Part 2. These lessons capture the things I wish my seniors had shared with me before I started Part 2. I have come to understand that our experiences in life are not just for ourselves only, but also for others. Therefore, I hope that the experiences and lessons I share here would guide you successfully through Part 2.

Recently, I was having a conversation with my young ones as they prepared towards their end of term examinations. During the conversation, I jokingly told them that I was never going to write exams again for the rest of my life. Although my intention for saying that was to tease them, it actually dawned on me that truly, unless I decide to challenge myself with another academic course, I may not be writing an exam again if I decide not to pursue any other course. Many of you are like me, with no plans of doing any other course after Law School. If you are, then why don’t you give Part 2 your hardest final push.

The humbling reality is that Part 2 is critical for a number of reasons:

1. When you fail two out of the four courses in Part 2, you would sadly have to repeat the whole of Part 2 again and retake all the four courses. This is the first scary thing about Part 2, the fact that when you fail any two of the courses, you have to go through the whole of Part 2 again, can you imagine that? Would you like to put yourself through that? No way, I pray you never have to go through this ‘ordeal’ as I put it.

2. Repeating Part 2 does not only mean retaking the four exam papers in Part 2, but also redoing all the qualifying requirements for Part 2, including the Practical moot examination which constitutes 30% of Advocacy and Legal Ethics, and probably going through the Exit interview again. Why would you want to go through these things all over again when they come with their own intense preparation and stress?

3. When you fail a paper in Part 2, you will sadly miss the main Call which normally takes place in October/ November and you would have to rewrite that paper to be part of the Mini call. Unlike Part 1 where there is time for you to rewrite a failed paper even before Part 2 starts or during the Part 2 exams, I say that Part 2 does not give you a second chance for you to rewrite a paper immediately to join the main Call. Once you fail a Part 2 paper, you automatically miss the main Call to the Bar. You may challenge the exam results and request for remarking, but sadly the Call will not be delayed or postponed to afford you time to clear your results. The Call will take place anyway and that is not so easy a thing to go through.

See, there is nothing wrong with the Mini Call. In fact, I have some good friends, brilliant students who went through the Mini call, but it is not easy at all not to be called to the Bar with your friends. One of the lecturers often jokingly said in class that ‘’there is only one call, and there is a Mini Call.” Although we used to laugh about this whenever he said it during lectures, I later realised that this was somewhat true. There were a few friends who had one issue or another with their results and therefore were not part of the Call in October and some were sincere enough to tell me that the feeling was quite unbearable. I pray you don’t have to go through this. Just get Part 2 done with once and for all.

4. Failing a paper in Part 2 comes with a lot of emotional stress, largely from explaining to family and friends why you were not part of the main Call. All those who know you are in Part 2 would expect to hear from you once they hear the results are out. Some may even go to the extent of calling you themselves to ask you how the results went and whether you will be part of the Call. Even though I sincerely think that you should not allow people to put you through this emotional stress, one cannot wish away how this negatively impacts a person. I write this not to condemn anyone who has had to repeat Part 2, but for you who is now in Part 2 and preparing to go through the motions of Part 2. Even for you who unfortunately is repeating Part 2, I believe these tips would make your second attempt smoother than the first. You can avoid the pitfalls by taking the things I share here seriously.

Part 2 is tough but not unsurmountable. If you survived Part 1, then you are capable of surviving Part 2, just make sure you give it your best shot.

In the next few paragraphs, I am going to share with you tips on how to smoothly go through Part 2. In this article I adopt a different approach, by not lumping the points together but rather taking one course after the other and highlighting the areas to pay attention to. I am confident that this will help you.

1. Law of interpretation

The Law of Interpretation is perhaps the most popular Part 2 course and I guess rightfully so, because the course is dense and technical. I am sure by now you have heard so many things about this course, especially when it comes to how exam questions are set in this course. While the things you have heard may be useful in helping you have the right attitude towards the course, I also sincerely think that some of the things you hear about the Law of Interpretation sometimes do not help you in having an open mind towards the course. It is just like some people’s attitude towards Mathematics as a course. Several people have struggled with Mathematics over the years because they were made to think that Mathematics was extremely difficult and that unfortunately took hold of their subconscious and have been unable to overcome their fear of Mathematics after so many years.

The truth is that to me, Mathematics is one of the easiest subjects and I say so not because of my background but because of my experience with it. Mathematics is one of the few subjects you can get a perfect score of 100%, not in Literature, nor English nor History, although most people will find these courses easier. Mathematics is purely principles-based, once you get the principles correct, you will get it right. Unlike the other subjects where someone uses other subjective considerations to mark. Well, back to law!

To me, the Law of Interpretation is one of the nicest courses you will do in Part 2 and I can confidently say that the subject has some of the most brilliant lecturers who will guide you through it. Interpretation simply engages your mind and expects you to understand certain theories and be able to apply them. In the law of interpretation, amongst others, you are going to learn the rules, approaches and doctrines that guide interpretation of written instruments, both statutory and non-statutory and be able to apply them to scenarios when given. Once you can understand these rules, theories and approaches, you should be fine.

However, I do not want you to be deceived into thinking that it is very easy, no, because the rules and approaches are a lot and some of the theories may appear abstract and so that’s where the challenge may be. You will also be introduced to some aids and canons of interpretation, some of whom will demand your understanding of certain Latin phrases and other complex expressions. The courses content is heavy but not difficult. All you need is the right attitude to the Law of Interpretation and be serious enough to read and read and read.

Some of the topics may require you to read more than once to able to fully grasp them and so do not be discouraged when you read a topic for the first-time and you do not understand. That is Interpretation for you. Over time you will be fine if you do not stop reading, and you cannot afford to stop reading. Once you read, no matter how the questions are set, you will be able to navigate your way around them.

In a nutshell, you need to take the Law of Interpretation seriously. It is largely a reading subject with no drafting whatsoever and so be ready to read and start reading early.

2. Conveyancing and drafting

This is yet another bulky course and comprises two parts as the name suggests, conveyancing and drafting. The conveyancing aspect involves the processes involved in land conveyancing and related matters. The other side of this course is Drafting, and I wish to inform you that this course involves a lot of drafting. You will be required to learn how to draft several instruments, about sixteen of them. Each of these instruments has various parts and you will be required to know what goes into each of the parts and be able to remember them. The lecturers make this easy by using checklists to teach you the various parts of the instruments, so that once you know the checklist for a particular instrument, you can easily draft it.

I admonish you to start learning how to draft the instruments as soon as lectures begin. Having the Practical Draftsman by B.J. Da Rocha and C. H. K. Lodoh is a categorical imperative and I encourage you to get your own copy. The Manual is also very helpful and therefore make sure you always carry the Practical Draftsman and Manual along with you to lectures all the time.

Conveyancing and Drafting is very tasking but at the start of the course you will feel as though it isn’t much until you realise that you are struggling to learn how to draft all the instruments as well as have a fair understanding of the theoretical aspect too because the topics are a lot.

The good thing about this course is that it is relatively easier to pass once you take it seriously and start learning early enough. This is because the exam questions are typically not too difficult, and once you have learnt the theory and the various instruments, you should find it easy passing it.

Here again, make it a point to attend all the lectures. Several books and materials contain samples of the instruments to be drafted but I realized that some of them were not entirely correct and so at lectures the lecturers will show you how to properly draft these instruments.

At this point, I need not tell you that you have come very far in the course, and this is not the time to slacken. Finish hard and well, once and for all.

3. Family Law and practice

This course is one of the most delicate courses in Part 2. I say so because it appears easy but it is actually a very technical and demanding one. Family Law and Practice can be compared to the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) course in Part 1. I personally know of people who did not make it to the Bar on the first attempt because of this course and the heartbreak that comes with this is enormous. As I mentioned earlier, every single course matters and any course can be the reason you are not part of the October or November enrolment.

For this course, I plead with you to be extremely careful with it. You cannot use general knowledge or experience to pass this course, you will fail it. Apart from that, the course has its technicalities and you would be required to use them without any scope for substitution. For instance, section 1(2) of the Matrimonial Courses Act, 1971 (Act 367) provides only ONE GROUND for granting a petition for divorce, which is that “the marriage has broken down beyond reconciliation”. Section 2(1) of the Act provides six facts that the Petitioner needs to satisfy the court of one or more to prove that the marriage has broken down beyond reconciliation. You shall not be pardoned when you say that the facts in section 2(1) are the grounds for divorce. You will be marked down. These are some of the technicalities about this course for which you need to be extremely careful.

For those who unfortunately fail this course upon the first attempt, they often wonder what went wrong because they were very certain they were going to make it and yet the results were not what they expected. This is the reason why I am sounding this note of caution about this course to you. Family Law and Practice can easily make you trip and so do not take chances.

Family Law and Practice, like all the Part 2 courses, is bulky and you will be covering a number of topics, very practical ones but also very technical. Apart from the theoretical aspect, you would also be required to know how to draft, particularly a petition for divorce. Based on the past question trends, the petition for divorce question is normally a compulsory question and carries about 40 out of the 100 marks in the examination, and so you cannot afford not to learn how to draft it and draft it well. I would encourage you to start learning how to draft the petition for divorce early and commit the various parts of the petition to mind because once again, Family Law and Practice will not pardon you if you mix the various parts of the petition. For instance, the seventh clause in the petition is: “That the marriage has broken down beyond reconciliation”.

You will be doing yourself a disservice if you put something else there. You will not make the mark, and I am not a prophet of doom but a good friend trying to save you a lot of stress. Once you have stated this clause, the next clause is then for you to state and particularise the facts that support the one and only ground that the marriage has broken down beyond reconciliation and there is a strict format to follow, and you must necessarily follow it. For instance, you are required to start with the dominant fact and particularise it, before you go to any other fact that you identify from the scenario given. The beauty about drafting a petition for divorce is that once you learn how to do it, it becomes very easy and you can easily score 30 out of 40 marks for the compulsory question in the exam, which will mean that you will only need at least 20 marks from the remaining three questions to make the 50 percent mark.

I therefore urge you to take the lectures seriously and pay attention to everything your lecturer tells you. Most of the lecturers answer past questions with you during lectures and will show you what they require you to write under each question. These are very helpful sessions, and you cannot afford to miss them nor take them for granted. Family Law and Practice is a very interesting course and one course you can easily pass if you adhere to the tips I have shared with you here.

4. Advocacy and legal ethics

This course has many parts and capable of denying you your call-to-the bar. As

the name suggests, there is the Advocacy part, then the Legal Ethics part. Apart from these two main parts, 30 percent of the marks in this course will come from a practical Moot exam which will take place after the main exams. For the Moot exam, you will be given a case to study and you would appear as Counsel for the applicant or respondent, normally in an appeal case. I think that is relatively easier to manage with the right preparation, but the main issue is with the theory part on Advocacy and Legal Ethics.

The Advocacy part covers a number of topics including Communication skills, Interviewing skills, Listening skills, Questioning skills, and the Litigation process, from opening statement, to Examination-in-Chief, Cross-Examination, Re-examination and Closing address. The Manual is extremely useful in this course. The notes on the various topics in the Manual appear scanty but they are very technical, and you will be expected to know what comes under every topic.

Perhaps the most demanding aspect of this course is the Legal Ethics part. This part requires you to be able to identify legal ethical issues in scenarios given and support the issues with provisions in the Legal Profession Act, 1960 (Act 32), the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct and Etiquette) Rules 2020 (LI 2423) and the Code of Ethics of the Ghana Bar Association. For some of the ethical issues, there are provisions in more than one of these laws and you will be required to cite all of them to support an ethical issue raised. Do you see how tasking this part of the course is, but the good thing is that the more you practice, the easier it becomes to spot the ethical issues and with time you will be able to commit the provisions and rules to mind in support of your issues.

What is more, the compulsory question in the exam comes from this area of the course and so you cannot wish it away. There is no way you can pass this course if you do not learn how to identify the legal ethical issues and back them with the requisite provisions and rules. The compulsory question in this paper carries at least 28 out of the 70 marks in the exam (remember 30 marks come from the Practical Moot exam) and so you must necessarily be on top of the ethical issues and the backing provisions and rules. To successfully pass the Law of Advocacy and Legal Ethics, you need to pass the written exam as well as the Moot exam.

I would therefore encourage you to start learning the rules early. As I indicated earlier, the Manual is extremely helpful but apart from that, there are study materials that have grouped the common ethical issues with the provisions and rules that come under each of them. A friend sitting next to you may have some of these study materials, request for it. Once you master some of these popular ethical issues as well as the rest, you should be comfortable enough to pass this course.

Another thing about the Advocacy and Legal Ethics exam is that it is a race against time and so you need to be able to manage your time effectively when you are writing this paper. If you do not take care, you can easily not finish answering your questions before you are timed out in the exams. This is because you can easily spend about one and half hours out of the three hours on the compulsory Question 1 alone, which would mean that you would have just about one and half hours to answer the remaining three questions. Try as much as possible to attempt every question before you leave the exam hall (I hope to later do a write-up on how to answer exam questions and maximise your time during exams). I urge you to be very time efficient during the Advocacy and Legal Ethics paper and in all your papers.

I must confess that I was not particularly pleased about my raw score in the Advocacy and Legal Ethics exam and I still do not understand how I managed to get such a score after all the effort I put in answering the exam questions. I was nowhere near the border line for the pass mark though, but I was still disappointed about my score and I even wondered whether the practical moot score had been added. A few friends of mine who were extremely good also expressed similar disappointments about the scores they got in this course, with some of them just on the 50% borderline, suggesting that they could easily have failed this paper. Do you now understand me when I say that you need to very careful about this course, because it can easily be the course that denies you the call-to-the Bar.

Having assessed the four courses separately, let me at this point summarise the key tips that cut across all the Part 2 subjects. This will help you to successfully go through Part 2 with passes in all the subjects:

a. Attend all lectures. It is costly to miss lectures. Try as much as possible not to miss a class. Let me tell you my friends, for some of the courses if not all, it is risky to miss a class.

b. Join a serious study group: I was privileged to have been invited by a friend in class to join their study group. I readily accepted the invitation because at the time my Part 1 group had become defunct because we had joined different Lecture Groups with different lecturers and so it was not practicable to be together. I am so glad the friend extended the invitation to me because the new study group challenged me to sit up and study. I can confidently say that I met some of the brightest students in this group and being part of the group contributed to my success in Part 2. By the grace of God, almost all the members of my study group made it successfully to the Bar and it tells you what a solid group it was!

The classmate who extended the invitation to me was the moderator of the group and he was excellent at it. He had a timetable and assigned topics for each day. Every member of the group was expected to read the topics given for discussions and during our meetings he made sure every member contributed to the discussions. He would mention your name to answer a question, and he would not move on until you have responded to the question. Our meetings were held via telegram and so it was very convenient, and one could join the meeting from anywhere.

Another special thing about this study group was that it comprised members from different lecture groups. I was from Accra Main Group B, others from Accra Main Group A, others from GIMPA and even others from the Post-Call class for the subjects we did in common. As a result, the discussions were enriched with various perspectives based on discussions that took place in different lecture groups. What was interesting about this group was that, our discussions were quite heated and sometimes we could argue for a long time over one issue. Of course, it is also important to know where to draw the line but on a number of occasions we ended our discussions without being ad idem on an issue but we were fine with it. I think this is one of the beauties of the law course, and also a good precursor to what happens in the practice.

Apart from that, the composition of the group helped us to be on the same page in respect of the various topics for every course, since some lecture groups were ahead of others. I can confidently say that being part of this study group made me a bit more comfortable in Part 2 than I was in Part.

c. Solve past questions. Another thing we used to do at our study group meetings was the discussion of past questions. We did that for the most part of the year but intensified it a few months before the end of year examinations. We answered the questions together and by the time we were writing the exams, we had attempted most of the past questions.

d. Ask questions in class when confused. I asked questions in class because I did not want to leave class with confusion on my mind. See, for instance, it is very normal to attend a 2-hour Law of Interpretation lecture and leave entirely confused, oh yes! This will not happen once, but a couple of times. So, when in doubt, ask, and ask the lecturer. The practice of law involves advocacy and so you should not struggle to ask questions in class. The lecture room is a good practice ground for your future advocacy as a lawyer.

There are some students who keep quiet in class when they have questions to ask or even contributions to make. I am very much aware of the fact that everyone is different and that while some people are naturally outspoken, others are not, but I also believe that we can train ourselves to be able to speak in public. The thing about speaking in public is that the more you do it, the better you become at it. Challenge yourself by saying that I am going to use the one year left in this law course to practice my advocacy skills. The lecturers are very receptive of questions and so pose the questions to them, rather than going to ask a friend who himself or herself may be confused about the topic and may end up giving you the wrong explanation.

Also, do well to participate in class discussions. There will be opportunities for students to volunteer to take in class moot sessions. Challenge yourself by volunteering to be part of this exercise. You will be glad you did and even for the one who is shy, this would afford you a good opportunity to overcome a bit of the shyness.

Do not forget the other golden rules

1. Start learning early. The year ends so fast and before long exams will be here.

2. Make your personal notes and learn hard.

3. Make some good friends in class. You will need them later.

4. Pray, pray and pray! Prayer makes all the difference. God will help you. He is faithful.

Other Matters: A note on your internship

I will admonish you to take your internship seriously and know what you put in your Logbook because you will be required to answer questions on it at the Exit interview. When you fail your Exit Interview, you will sadly not be called to the Bar with your friends and so be very serious about the internship and do well to record your daily activities in your Logbook. Do not wait till the last minute before you try to complete it. It may put you under intense stress and you are likely not to remember a lot of things.

Aside being able to answer questions from your Logbook, the internship gives you the opportunity to learn some lawyering skills ahead of your call to the Bar. For instance, I did my Part 2 internship at the Circuit court, and I learnt quite a lot. It gives you firsthand view and appreciation of what takes place in court or at the law firm or the legal department and so have the right attitude towards it.

I wish you the very best in Part 2 and I look forward to having you join us at the Bar in a few months’ time.

Your friend,

Claudia.