President John Dramani Mahama has assented to the Legal Education Reform Bill, 2025, ushering in a major transformation in Ghana’s legal education system and ending the Ghana School of Law’s 66-year monopoly on professional legal training.
The new legislation is expected to significantly widen access to professional legal education by allowing accredited universities and institutions to offer professional law courses, a mandate that had for decades been reserved solely for the Ghana School of Law.
For years, stakeholders within the legal and academic sectors had expressed concerns over the restrictive structure of legal education in Ghana, particularly the challenges surrounding admission into the Ghana School of Law.
Thousands of qualified LLB graduates were often unable to proceed with their professional legal training due to limited admission capacity and the highly competitive entrance examination process.
Speaking after signing the bill into law on Monday, May 11, President Mahama said the legislation seeks not only to regulate legal education and uphold high professional standards, but also to create broader opportunities for legal education in Ghana.
“This law is to regulate legal education and ensure the highest standards in terms of legal education, but also to open up the space for more opportunity for legal education in Ghana. This particular act has been one that many aspiring lawyers have been looking up to,” the President stated.
Under the previous framework, the Ghana School of Law remained the only institution authorized to offer the Professional Law Course required for qualification and call to the Bar in Ghana.
That arrangement, which had existed for more than six decades, frequently sparked public debate, with students, civil society organisations and legal practitioners consistently advocating reforms to make legal education more accessible.
The passage and presidential assent of the Legal Education Reform Bill, 2025, is therefore being hailed as a significant breakthrough in addressing longstanding barriers within Ghana’s legal education system.
With the new law now in effect, accredited universities that satisfy the required standards and secure approval from the appropriate regulatory bodies will be permitted to run professional legal education programmes.
