The Attorney-General, Godfred Yeboah Dame has expressed confidence in the future of Ghana’s legal profession, describing it as promising.
His confidence stems from the new Legal Profession Bill in the offing as part of measures to comprehensively, and in a more sustainable way, address among other things, issues relating to access to legal education, rules on call to the Bar and regulation of professional conduct.
“We believe in broadening access to legal education whilst preserving standards and quality, cherished values without which the legal profession will lose its relevance to society. With these giant strides, I am confident that the future of the legal profession is bigger, brighter and better,” Mr Dame stated during the 2024 annual conference of the Ghana Bar Association in Kumasi.
He noted that in the past four years, the NPP government has recorded the highest admission of persons to study law and the biggest call of persons to the Bar in the nation’s history.
Since 2021, more than 3,000 individuals have been called to the Bar. In 2022, over 1,000 lawyers were admitted, and in 2023, this figure was surpassed with 1,286 lawyers being called during both the Main Call and Mini Call ceremonies.
He reflected on the role he played in 2021 that ensured the admission of 499 students into the Ghana School of Law, after presenting a petition to the General Legal Council.
The A-G added, “It is correct to say that for many of the junior lawyers, your presence in this room has been made possible by the positive decisions to broaden access to the legal profession by the Akufo-Addo administration.”