Former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo has defended strict standards in legal education, insisting the focus must remain on quality rather than numbers.

Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express Business Edition recently, she said reforms in legal training were carefully designed to protect professional standards.

She disclosed that recommendations had been approved during Justice Acquah's tenure as Chief Justice to reform the system on a time-bound basis.

She explained that the professional law course is taught at KNUST and was previously run at the University of Ghana before being moved to GIMPA due to accommodation challenges.

“Those are courses that are run by the General Legal Council.”

According to her, there was a projection that by 2020, universities would have been certified to meet required standards.

“We actually did start going around universities which had faculties of law.”

She said representatives of the General Legal Council worked with the then National Accreditation Board to assess curriculum and faculty structures.

“We started going around… to look at the curriculum and the structure of the faculties of law, because certain standards were set.”

Those standards were clear. Specific courses had to be taught to meet the LLB requirements. Libraries had to be “a worthwhile library.” Faculties needed enough professors “in the strict sense of the word, not the American sense of the word.”

She stressed that the student-lecturer ratio was also critical.

“The student-to-lecturer ratio was not more than one lecturer to 35, and even then, the accreditation board felt that it was too high. It should have been at most 29.”

However, she noted that the field is “kind of sparse with what we need.” For her, the core objective remains firm.

“The most important thing would have to be that once the quality and the selection are done in such a way.”

She added that even the production of LLB graduates must ensure that “the independent educator in the law profession is also properly situated for that.”

Access to practitioners is essential.

“It’s not that you have no access to legal practitioners who are going to be imparting practical knowledge to the students.”

The ultimate goal, she said, was to ensure that by the end of the professional course, “you’re a fully fledged lawyer.”

She explained that under the envisioned system, a student could earn an LLB at Cape Coast and complete the bar at a certified institute elsewhere.

“But it is the care with which all this is going to be properly marshalled.”

She returned to her central theme. “The objective is not really how many you’re producing, but still the quality you’re producing.”