Thalia Clerveau is a 3L at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. She files this dispatch from Accra. This is one in a seasonal series of columns by JURIST law student staff and correspondents discussing their summer work in support of justice, human rights and the rule of law, in their own countries and around the world.
During my first week in Accra, I had the opportunity to join Ghanaian law students from GIMPA Law School, one of the most prestigious university law faculties in Ghana, for a dinner. As we enjoyed jollof rice and stew, we compared notes on our respective law school experiences. I discovered that becoming a lawyer in Ghana involves a series of steps. First, students must obtain a bachelor’s degree in law before they can apply to law school. The admission process is highly competitive, requiring students to pass an entrance exam and undergo an interview. Once students successfully complete law school, they become eligible to take the bar exam. In 2021, the Ghanaian bar exam had a passage rate of 28%. This is a stark difference from the US bar passage rate, which usually sits around 80%.
Something else that piqued my interest was the heavy influence of American legal pedagogy on Ghana’s legal education system. While conversing with Ghanaian law students, I was surprised to learn that their professors employ both the casebook method and the Socratic method. The Socratic method was introduced to US law schools in 1870, a few years after the American Civil War. After the Civil War, women, African Americans, and immigrants sought to gain entry into spaces from which they had historically been excluded, such as law schools. This led to resistance from established attorneys, primarily white men, who perceived their profession as threatened. Consequently, various onerous and discriminatory practices and policies were implemented to maintain the prestige of the bar. Many of these policies were rooted in racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Unfortunately, remnants of these exclusionary policies persist today, creating additional obstacles for marginalized students seeking to enter the legal profession.
My discussion with the GIMPA law students opened my eyes to the reality that other countries are facing similar challenges to accessible higher education. Students face similar challenges entering the legal profession in both Ghana and the United States. Both countries have policies that establish substantial structural barriers to becoming a lawyer, especially for marginalized communities. In Ghana, unlike the United States, there is no option for individuals to take out student loans. An aspiring attorney will need to pay for their undergraduate degree and their postgraduate degree out of pocket. That is a lot of time and money, especially considering the fact a Ghanaian law student only had a 30% chance of passing the bar. Nevertheless, many still embark on this journey with the ambition to one day wear the powdered wig, a symbol of status and prestige exclusively reserved for Ghanaian lawyers.
However, the global pursuit of maintaining the prestige of the legal profession begs the question: do we inadvertently weaken the field? Jurisprudence is an ever-changing discipline, and the law has a responsibility to evolve in line with the changing times. Diversity in the field helps to ensure that these changes are equitable and considers all of the people the law governs. Unfortunately, both the American and Ghanaian law school systems seem to accommodate the privileged. I believe that the goal of law schools should be producing cohorts of law students based on the needs of the community these future lawyers will be serving. This means a shift away from the individualistic approach of who can score the highest on a test to a community-based approach that looks at how a potential law student can strengthen discourse in classrooms through diverse perspectives. Currently, in both the United States and Ghana, there is an excessive focus on metrics that have little bearing on the type of attorney an individual can become which leads to the exclusion of marginalized groups and ultimately weakens the law field.
It is important to remember that Ghana’s democracy is relatively young, as Ghana only gained independence from Britain in 1979, making it only 44 years old. The progress this country has achieved in such a short span of time is truly remarkable. After connecting with many brilliant young law students, I have no doubt that the future of Ghanaian jurisprudence is a promising one. The relentless pursuit of maintaining the perception of prestige in the field of law is not limited to the United States alone. Nevertheless, I am encouraged by the ripples of change I’ve witnessed in the upcoming generations of lawyers.
