President John Dramani Mahama has signed the Legal Education Reform Bill, 2025 into law, a major reform that ends the Ghana School of Law’s long-standing monopoly over professional legal training in the country and opens the way for accredited institutions to offer the programme.
The President assented to the law on Monday, May 11, 2026, at Jubilee House. Speaking after signing the bill, he said the new law is intended both to maintain standards and widen access to legal education. “The 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,” he said.
The new law is expected to address a long-running concern in Ghana’s legal education system, where the Ghana School of Law had remained the only institution authorised to provide the Professional Law Course required for students to qualify for the Bar. That arrangement, in place for about 66 years, had been widely criticised for limiting access, especially as thousands of LLB graduates struggled each year to secure admission through the highly competitive entrance system.
Parliament passed the bill in March as part of efforts to expand access to professional legal education while preserving quality. The legislation also seeks to establish the Council for Legal Education and Training to regulate professional legal education and set curriculum and standards.
Under the new framework, universities and other institutions that meet the required standards and obtain the necessary approvals will be allowed to run professional legal education programmes. The reform is being seen as a significant breakthrough for aspiring lawyers who have long pushed for a broader and more accessible system.
The signing of the law is expected to reshape legal training in Ghana by expanding opportunity while placing greater emphasis on regulation, quality assurance and institutional oversight.
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