President John Dramani Mahama has signed the Legal Education Reform Bill (2025) into law, ending the 66-year monopoly of the Ghana School of Law over professional legal education in Ghana.
The new law allows accredited universities to offer professional law programmes required for admission to the Ghana Bar, marking a major shift in the country’s legal education system.
For decades, campaigners and legal experts have argued that the previous system limited access to the legal profession by restricting professional legal training to only the Ghana School of Law.
Since its establishment in 1958, the institution has been the sole body authorised to run the professional law course for aspiring lawyers.
Critics said the arrangement created a bottleneck, leaving hundreds of qualified law graduates unable to gain admission each year due to limited space.
Under the new legislation, universities that meet accreditation standards set by the relevant regulatory authorities will now be permitted to run professional legal training programmes.
The reform is expected to expand access to legal education, increase training capacity, and create more opportunities for law graduates across the country.
