Chief Justice to chair new board of Ghana’s Council for Legal Education and Training

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The 11-member board brings together judges, ministries, the tertiary education regulator and law school deans as the Legal Education Act is implemented.

Jurisdiction GhanaPractice Employment

Ghana’s Council for Legal Education and Training (CLET) has unveiled an 11-member board chaired by Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, reported on 21 September 2026.

Membership

The board comprises the Chief Justice; Justice Gabriel Scott Pwamang of the Supreme Court; Justice Jennifer Abena Dadzie of the Court of Appeal; Her Honour Siran Mahama, a Circuit Court judge; Deputy Attorney-General Dr Justice Srem-Sai; Deputy Minister for Education Dr Clement Abas Apaak; Prof Augustine Ocloo of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission; Prof Kofi Abotsi, Dean of the UPSA Law School; Prof Peter Atudiwe Atupare, Dean of the University of Ghana School of Law; Prof Cynthia Forson, Deputy Provost of Lancaster University Ghana; and Prof Raymond Atuguba, Director-General for Legal Education.

Why it matters

CLET oversees professional legal training, including the Ghana School of Law, under the Legal Education Act. Access to professional training has been the most contested issue in Ghana’s legal profession for a decade, with litigation over entrance examinations and repeated calls from the GBA to operationalise the Act. The board now has the mandate to set admission policy, accredit providers and supervise training quality.

For firms, the pipeline question is practical: the number and preparation of new lawyers entering practice each year determine recruitment costs and the balance between litigation and transactional capacity. The presence of two faculty deans and a private university’s deputy provost signals that accreditation of teaching outside the Ghana School of Law will be on the agenda.

Points to watch

Whether the board publishes admission criteria and examination statistics; how accreditation of new providers is handled; and how the Chief Justice’s role as chair interacts with the General Legal Council, which retains responsibility for enrolment and discipline. The board takes office while the Attorney-General is also proposing a new disciplinary framework for lawyers, so the two reforms will overlap.