Bakhita Mawuli Koblavie, Esq.
“Nunya, adidoe, asi metunɛ o;” literally translated, “Knowledge is like a baobab tree; no single pair of arms can embrace it. (Ewe proverb) Meaning ‘no single person is a repository of all wisdom’
Introduction
The Legal Education Act, 2026 (Act 1170) decentralises professional legal training by permitting accredited university law faculties to deliver the Law Practice Training Programme (LPT).[1] Pending the full operationalisation of the Council for Legal Education and Training (CLET), admission to the Bar proceeds in defined stages under interim directives issued by the Director of Legal Education. Thus, an LLB graduate undertakes a one-year Pre-Bar Course (PBC), followed by the LPT, and thereafter sits the National Bar Examination before becoming eligible for call.[2] The Act itself settles where ADR will sit once the transition ends. Sections 48 and 49 prescribe the courses to be taken at the LLB level, and ADR is expressly among them.[3] The PBC’s inclusion of ADR is therefore transitional by design, covering subjects hitherto taught at the Ghana School of Law but absent from existing LLB curricula until faculties align with the statutory prescription.[4] The consequence is structural. Under Act 1170, ADR is taken before a candidate ever qualifies for the LPT, and it is conspicuously absent from the prescribed LPT curriculum.[5]
Under the Pre-Bar arrangements, ADR has been placed alongside Company Law, Commercial Law, Family Law, and the Interpretation of Deeds and Statutes.[6] The LPT, which is the professional stage, comprises Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Conveyancing and Drafting, Advocacy and Legal Ethics, and Law Practice Management and Legal Accounting.[7] To treat ADR as a Pre-Bar and, ultimately, an LLB course is to reduce it to a preliminary academic subject, studied, examined, and set aside even before professional training begins. That arrangement does not reflect the position ADR actually occupies in Ghanaian law and practice, and in the regional and global markets in which Ghanaian lawyers must now compete. This mismatch manifests in the following ways:
The Nature of ADR as a Professional Skill
First, ADR is fundamentally a practice-based professional skill rather than an introductory academic subject. Processes such as mediation, arbitration, customary arbitration, negotiation and conciliation are modes of dispute resolution that lawyers perform, either as neutrals or as counsel, rather than mere bodies of knowledge to be memorised. Competent ADR practice requires professional judgment, ethical decision-making, a client-centred strategic approach, procedural fluency, and effective advocacy. These are competencies developed at the professional stage of legal training. They do not fall within the remit of a first year that is predominantly academic in orientation. The distinction created by the new structure under Act 1170 is sound, yet it is that very distinction which weighs against the current placement of ADR. The LLB and Pre-Bar stages are designed to introduce legal theory, whereas the professional stage is intended to train lawyers. On that logic, ADR properly belongs to the professional stage, because the core ADR competencies, such as representing clients in mediation, arbitration, negotiation or customary arbitration; preparing arbitration pleadings; drafting settlement agreements; managing evidence in arbitral proceedings; and advocating before forums whose neutrals are not judges, are practical skills. These skills lie at the heart of ADR training and can be meaningfully acquired only once a student has mastered basic legal reasoning. They are best developed through the practical immersion that the professional stage is designed to provide, including simulations, case studies, and supervised exercises. A Pre-Bar or LLB student, still consolidating foundational reasoning, is not yet positioned to benefit fully from advanced negotiation exercises, arbitration simulations or mediation role-plays. The professional stage is where that foundation exists, and it is therefore the appropriate place for ADR instruction.
The Rules of Professional Conduct
Second, the rules of professional conduct already make competence in ADR mandatory. The first point concerns the nature of ADR as a practical skill; this second point concerns a legal obligation, and it is the most decisive. The Legal Profession (Professional Conduct and Etiquette) Rules 2020 (LI 2423), made under the Legal Profession Act 1960 (Act 32), bind every lawyer in Ghana.[8] They require lawyers to be competent in ADR, and failure to meet that standard attracts disciplinary consequences. In short, ADR is not optional professional knowledge; it is a compulsory competence.
Rule 29 of LI 2423 requires a lawyer, where appropriate, to inform the client of the reasonably available alternatives to litigation.[9] Rule 66 further requires a lawyer to advise and encourage settlement where reasonably possible, to consider the use of an ADR mechanism, to inform the client of the available options, and, where the client so elects, to pursue them.[10] Rule 32 regulates the lawyer acting as a third-party neutral, whether as arbitrator, mediator or otherwise, and sets out the disclosures required under that role.[11] Rule 96 is even more decisive. It imposes a duty on counsel to advise a client to avoid or discontinue litigation where the dispute admits of fair settlement, and it provides that a lawyer commits professional misconduct by refusing an available opportunity, in the client’s interest, to settle out of court rather than litigate.[12]
The implication of these rules is significant for the Ghanaian lawyer. In effect, failure to identify and pursue settlement is not a matter of style, preference, or strategy. It can, of itself, constitute professional misconduct before the Disciplinary Committee. Consequently, it is difficult to justify treating a subject that may ground a finding of misconduct as a preliminary course, completed a year in advance and never examined at the professional stage. A comparison between the outgoing professional curriculum and the LPT under Act 1170 reinforces the point. Ethics is already taught at the professional stage, as Advocacy and Legal Ethics. ADR, in its requirements of neutrality, confidentiality, the management of conflicts of interest, fairness and the ethics of representation, is bound up with ethical issues throughout.
Rule 84 further requires every lawyer holding a practising certificate to complete at least twelve hours of continuing professional development each year.[13] This confirms that the profession treats its practising skills as live and evolving rather than as static book learning. If ADR competence must be maintained after the call through continuing professional development, it is inconsistent to locate the acquisition of that competence entirely before the call.
ADR in Substantive Law and the Rules of Court
Third, ADR now runs through many of our substantive laws and our rules of court. Competence in ADR has become compulsory because Parliament and the Rules of Court Committee have made ADR central to the resolution of disputes in Ghana.
Under the rules of court, ADR no longer stands outside the litigation process. The High Court (Civil Procedure) (Amendment) Rules 2020 (CI 133) amended the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2004 (CI 47) in significant respects.[14] The amended Order 32 requires the court to enquire, before directions, whether ADR may settle the case; to permit the parties to stay proceedings to attempt settlement; and to allow any settlement reached to be entered as the judgment of the court.[15] CI 133 also amended Order 58, renaming it “Commercial Actions”, extending it beyond the Commercial Division, and imposing on both the court and the parties a duty to pursue early settlement.[16]
The Judiciary has reinforced this framework. In 2024, the Chief Justice issued Practice Directions on Court-Connected ADR and on Commercial Pre-Trial Settlement, both under CI 133, as part of the LEADing Justice Initiative.[17] The consequence is that a lawyer who conducts civil litigation must be able to participate competently in ADR, because the procedural rules require that participation at defined stages. ADR is therefore embedded within Civil Procedure and forms part of the civil dispute resolution strategy taught at the professional stage. Moving ADR to the Pre-Bar or LLB does not remove it from the professional stage; it merely fragments a competence that must be taught and reinforced where it is actually applied.
The rules of court are, however, the weaker limb of the argument, because one might object that they are merely procedural machinery. That objection collapses once the governing statutes are examined.
The Alternative Dispute Resolution Act 2010 (Act 798) is the framework statute for the resolution of disputes by arbitration, mediation and customary arbitration.[18] It repealed the Arbitration Act 1961 (Act 38) and draws substantially on the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration.[19] Part Four establishes the ADR Centre with regional and district offices;[20] Act 798 empowers the court to refer parties to arbitration, mediation and customary arbitration.[21] The Act constitutes a complete scheme, and in the fifteen years since its enactment Parliament has connected other statutes to it.
The most significant development is in land law, the predominant area of Ghanaian litigation. Section 98(1) of the Land Act 2020 (Act 1036) envisages the use of ADR in land litigation. It provides that an action concerning land, or an interest in land, in a registration district shall not be commenced in any court unless the dispute resolution procedures under Act 798 have been exhausted.[22] The requirement is one of exhaustion, not of encouragement, choice or style. Section 115 requires the Land Registrar to refer competing claimants to ADR, and section 15 makes the settlement of land disputes through ADR a function of every Customary Land Secretariat.[23] Thus, in the busiest field of Ghanaian practice, ADR has become a precondition of access to the court on specific causes of action in land.
In Republic v High Court (Labour Court 1), Accra; Ex parte A and C Development Co Ltd, the Supreme Court held that section 98 does not oust the High Court’s jurisdiction over land disputes generally, and that it applies to disputes arising from the registration of title, or of an interest in land, in a registration district.[24] That construction narrows the section but does not affect the argument. Even so confined, an entire category of land litigation in Accra, Tema, Kumasi and Sekondi-Takoradi cannot be commenced until ADR has been exhausted, and every practitioner in that field must be able to conduct and complete it.
Similarly, the Labour Act 2003 (Act 651) rests on ADR.[25] Its dispute machinery proceeds through settlement by negotiation, mediation, voluntary arbitration and compulsory arbitration, and is supported by a national list of mediators and arbitrators.[26] Notice of an intended strike or lockout may not be given until negotiation and mediation have failed and neither party is willing to submit to voluntary arbitration;[27] thus, the Act permits that industrial action follows if ADR fails. As a result, a lawyer who lacks the skills to represent a client in mediation or arbitration therefore cannot fully practise employment law.
The Legal Aid Commission Act 2018 (Act 977) establishes the Commission with three divisions, one of which is the ADR Division.[28] This Division is not incidental, as it constitutes one of the three statutory pillars of legal aid, with an express mandate to mainstream ADR.[29] The Act further empowers the Commission to arrange ADR, fund its incidental expenses, require contributions where appropriate, and conduct structured negotiation through conferencing sessions.[30] The ADR Division is therefore a core statutory organ, tasked with assisting parties to reach compromise and with developing customary arbitration through offices in every region and district.[31] Parliament thus determined, in 2018, that access to justice for those who cannot afford a lawyer would be delivered in part through ADR, at district level, throughout the country. ADR has nonetheless been removed from professional legal training.
Criminal Practice
The criminal law has moved in the same direction. The Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) (Amendment) Act 2022 (Act 1079) introduced a comprehensive scheme of plea bargaining into the Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) Act 1960 (Act 30).[32] The material provision is section 162A(3), under which, where the accused is represented, the plea negotiations are to be conducted between the prosecutor and counsel for the accused.[33] Parliament has thereby assigned the negotiation, by statute, to counsel personally, with the liberty of the accused at stake. The plea bargain agreement may also provide for compensation to a victim and for restitution by the accused, outcomes of precisely the restorative, negotiated character that mediation is designed to achieve.[34] Although plea bargaining is not ADR in the strict sense of Act 798, because criminal liability is not arbitrable, the underlying professional competence, negotiation, is the same. The assessment of whether a matter may be resolved by agreement, the conduct of the negotiation, and the reduction of the result to a legally enforceable instrument are key competencies that a criminal lawyer, whether representing the state or the accused, must acquire, and that foundation is laid through the practical aspects of ADR training. It is telling that, on the enactment of Act 1079, the Attorney-General announced training for judges, prosecutors, the Police Service and the Prisons Service to ensure its proper application.[35] Such remedial training, provided after the fact, supplies a competence that professional formation did not. The appropriate response to that deficiency is not further workshops, but the teaching of negotiated resolution at the point where lawyers are formed. The connection is not merely theoretical. Restorative justice, and victim-offender mediation in particular, is currently taught and examined at the Ghana School of Law within Part One of the Bar curriculum, which is presently undergoing transition. That component of ADR practice is therefore already examined at the professional stage. This makes the current reform, which excludes ADR as a professional subject, more anomalous.
The above-mentioned laws are nothing near exhaustive, as there are a plethora of other statutes that require the use of ADR regarding specific matters in dispute under those legislations.[36]
The Bench
Underlying all of these, sections 72 and 73 of the Courts Act 1993 (Act 459) require the courts, staffed by judges drawn from the Bar, to promote reconciliation in civil and in criminal proceedings.[37] That power has existed since 1993, but what has changed is the structure Parliament has since built upon it. Thus, the fourth reason, closely connected to the third, for situating ADR at the professional stage concerns the Bench. Judges in Ghana are appointed from among qualified lawyers; the ADR training of the profession is therefore, in time, the ADR training of the Bench. This is material because the law confers the ADR function on the judge, and not only on the parties assisted and guided by counsel. It is the court that must enquire into settlement before directions under CI 133; the court that must promote reconciliation under the Courts Act; the court that must be satisfied that ADR has been exhausted before a land action is properly commenced under section 98 of Act 1036; and the court that must examine and give effect to a negotiated plea under Act 1079. A judge who cannot evaluate a negotiated outcome cannot supervise one, and a judge who does not understand the capacities and limits of mediation, arbitration, or customary arbitration cannot properly determine whether a case is suited to it, a determination frequently made early, on incomplete information, and at times with a person’s liberty in the balance. If the Bench is drawn from the Bar, the ADR competence of the Bar sets the foundation for that of the Bench. That foundation should be set deliberately.
Employability and the Justice System
Fifth, two practical considerations follow, and they are the ones students encounter most directly. The first is employability. Law firms, corporate legal departments, non-governmental organisations and public agencies now expect a lawyer to negotiate settlements, participate in arbitration and mediation, draft arbitration clauses or mediated settlement agreements, advise on the available modes of dispute resolution, and manage cross-border disputes. That expectation is supported by empirical evidence. The leading survey of dispute resolution users reports that 87 per cent prefer arbitration, alone or in conjunction with other ADR mechanisms, for the resolution of cross-border disputes.[38] These are professional expectations rather than academic exercises. Since professional training is intended to prepare students for practice, and ADR has become a core element of employability, it should be taught where that preparation occurs.
The second is the functioning of the justice system.[39] The courts are heavily burdened. [40]ADR is among the most effective instruments of judicial case management, reducing backlog, delay, cost and the burden on judges,[41] and the reforms under CI 133 and the 2024 Practice Directions, as noted above, proceed upon that premise. Those reforms depend, however, on the capacity of the practitioners appearing before the courts, and of the neutrals, to conduct ADR competently. The profession cannot be asked to relieve the pressure on the courts through ADR while being trained to regard ADR as a preliminary, theoretical subject.
Comparable Jurisdictions
Sixth, and most crucially, Ghana is out of step with comparable jurisdictions. If the placement of ADR were only a domestic matter, the argument might end there. It is not. Ghana’s placement of ADR runs contrary to the practice of comparable jurisdictions, and the comparison is not favourable. In Kenya, for example, ADR is a taught unit of the Advocates Training Programme of the Kenya School of Law, which is the professional Bar course itself and not a preliminary academic year.[42] Kenya has also embedded ADR at the constitutional level, since Article 159(2)(c) of its Constitution requires the courts to promote alternative forms of dispute resolution, including reconciliation, mediation, arbitration and traditional dispute resolution mechanisms.[43]
In Nigeria, every student at the Nigerian Law School takes the five compulsory courses in the vocational Bar year,[44] all of which must be passed before call to the Bar as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. ADR is a taught and examined component of the Law in Practice (Ethics and Skills) course taught at the vocational Bar Part II year. It comprises negotiation, mediation, multi-door courts, arbitration and conciliation, which are expressly listed as discrete syllabus topics.[45] This is reinforced by the Civil Procedure Rules that students must master, as the High Court of Lagos State (Civil Procedure) Rules 2019 introduced a mandatory pre-action ADR stop, requiring all originating processes to be screened for suitability for ADR and referred to the Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse before a matter may proceed to full trial.³[46] ADR training at the Nigerian Law School is therefore embedded in the professional ethics and skills course that every aspiring lawyer in Nigeria must pass as a condition of admission to practice.
Similarly, in Uganda, the Law Development Centre (LDC) conducts the Post Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice, the sole professional Bar Course required for admission to the Bar. Following a curriculum review in 2023, Alternative Dispute Resolution was introduced as a discrete, separately examined subject within the Bar Course alongside trial advocacy, legal ethics and professionalism, and legal writing and drafting, replacing elective units that were considered insufficiently skills-oriented.[47] Every aspiring advocate in Uganda must therefore pass ADR as a standalone examination before admission to practice.[48] In March 2026, the Principal Judge, Justice Jane Frances Abodo, urged Bar Course students at the Centre to urged the students to embrace ADR as a cornerstone of modern legal practice, resolving disputes efficiently rather than prolonging litigation.[49]
In South Africa, ADR training for advocates is not merely a module embedded in litigation procedure but a standalone, statutorily prescribed examination subject. The Legal Practice Act 28 of 2014 prescribes nine compulsory subjects that every pupil advocate must pass before admission to the High Court, and ADR is expressly listed among them alongside advocacy skills, civil and criminal procedure, professional ethics, and constitutional law.[50] The General Council of the Bar further institutionalises ADR as part of the Bar’s public mission, identifying it as one of the mechanisms through which the Bar serves all the people of South Africa.[51]
The practice is the same in Tanzania and Rwanda. In Tanzania, ADR has been made a compulsory subject in all higher learning and training institutions for lawyers, in recognition of its centrality to civil litigation practice;[52] while in Rwanda, the Institute of Legal Practice and Development, being the sole provider of the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice that is compulsory for all advocates, judges and prosecutors under the Rwanda Bar Association Law, devotes a standalone module of its eight-module programme expressly to ADR, in addition to its specialist diplomas.[53]
The pattern extends beyond Africa. In England and Wales, ADR, expressly including negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and conciliation, is compulsory and centrally examined in both the Solicitors Qualifying Examination[54] and the Bar course. For barristers specifically, ADR forms part of the Civil Litigation and Evidence module, assessed against a Bar Standards Board syllabus that prescribes The Jackson ADR Handbook as a set examination text, with negotiation also assessed as a live practical skill. A barrister cannot qualify without demonstrating competence in both.[55]
In essence, both common law and mixed-jurisdictions in Africa, and the wider common law world, are incorporating ADR into professional formation, while Ghana proposes to remove it.
The AfCFTA and the International Setting
Seventh, ADR is essential to the pursuit of trade and investment under the AfCFTA. The regional context therefore raises concerns for the future of Ghanaian lawyers in the African regional market. If ADR retains its current placement, they risk being unprepared for the dispute resolution work the AfCFTA will generate.
The AfCFTA resolves disputes under its Protocol on Rules and Procedures on the Settlement of Disputes, which gives primacy to amicable methods.[56] Consultation between States is the required first step[57], and the Protocol permits the parties, at any stage, to resort to good offices, conciliation or mediation, on a confidential and without-prejudice basis, before the constitution of any panel.[58] The AfCFTA Secretariat may facilitate these processes at the parties’ request.[59] The Protocol on Investment likewise directs that disputes be pursued first through amicable means, including negotiation, conciliation and mediation, and although the annex governing investor-State dispute resolution under Article 46 remains under negotiation,[60] the incompleteness of that annex is itself a reason to be proactive. The practitioners who will shape and subsequently service the AfCFTA dispute resolution regime are those whose training equips them in negotiation, conciliation, mediation and arbitration.
It is sometimes suggested that this aspect of the AfCFTA is of limited concern to practitioners because its dispute settlement is State-to-State. The contrary is the case. A State does not negotiate in the abstract. When Ghana engages in consultation, conciliation or mediation, it is represented by lawyers from the Office of the Attorney-General, from the Ministry responsible for trade, from the Investment Promotion Authority, and by counsel briefed on its behalf, drawn from the same Bar as the profession at large. The inter-State character of the regime heightens, rather than diminishes, the need for competence in ADR. The quality of Ghana’s representation in a trade or investment dispute, and the difference between a favourable and an unfavourable settlement, depends in part on the ability of the State’s own lawyers to negotiate and mediate. On the investment side, the point is stronger still, for the dispute will frequently lie between a foreign investor and the Republic itself.
The same reasoning applies internationally. The United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, commonly known as the Singapore Convention on Mediation (SCM), affords an international mediated commercial settlement agreement a direct route to enforcement, doing for mediation much of what the New York Convention did for arbitral awards.[61] Ghana has signed but not ratified the Convention, while Nigeria has ratified it. I argued for Ghana’s ratification in The PALM in December 2025, and I renew that argument here, since ratification without a competent professional base would be of little effect, and that base begins with what is examined at the Bar.[62] Ghana currently relies heavily on international counsel for representation in cross-border and international disputes, and the financial outlay involved in retaining external lawyers is substantial. By strengthening ADR training at the professional stage, Ghana can build a domestic pool of practitioners capable of handling these matters, allowing the country to retain resources that are presently expended abroad.
Access and the Professional Workforce
A final consideration concerns access and the professional workforce that our statutes presuppose. ADR in Ghana has assumed the character of a specialism for a limited few, sustained by private networks and paid certification rather than by detailed professional formation. That order is misplaced, and the current positioning of ADR under the new reforms reinforces it. ADR is a means of resolving disputes. Complex cases aside, it demands less of the beginner than contentious trial work does, resting mostly on facilitation, drafting and negotiation rather than the full apparatus of trial. There is no principled reason for it to be more difficult to enter than litigation.
What renders the situation indefensible is that the institutions already exist in law. Parliament established an Alternative Dispute Resolution Centre with regional and district offices under Part Four of Act 798, an institution that remains largely unrealised fifteen years later.[63] Parliament further established an ADR Division of the Legal Aid Commission under Act 977, with an office required in every region and district. The Judiciary operates a Court-Connected ADR programme. Thus, the institutions are in place, and what is absent is the trained workforce and a defined route into it.
As a teacher of ADR, I have observed considerable interest among trainee lawyers who wish to specialise in the field and who have no evident means of doing so. A young lawyer wishing to practise ADR full-time, as a neutral working with the courts under the Court-Connected ADR programme, with the ADR Division of the Legal Aid Commission, or under the National ADR Centre and its offices across the sixteen regions, or within a private ADR institution, has neither a recognised path nor a professional home. This was my own experience, until I chose to chart an independent path. The field has acquired gatekeepers where the law built no gate.
There is also a question of national ambition. Ghana should be establishing itself as a serious centre for ADR in Africa, able to compete with jurisdictions such as Egypt and Mauritius, rather than reducing ADR to a preliminary course whose significance may diminish over time. Constituting ADR as a subject of the professional stage would address this at its source. It would place every lawyer called in Ghana on the same footing, produce competent neutrals to staff the institutions already established in law, the judiciary among them, and allow specialisation to follow merit rather than access.
The Proposal
The argument to this point leads to one central recommendation, together with several measures needed to give it effect. First, and centrally, ADR should be removed from the Pre-Bar and LLB stages and constituted as a discrete subject of the Law Practice Training Programme, taught and examined at the professional stage alongside Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, and Advocacy and Legal Ethics. It should carry its own examination, so that competence in it becomes a condition of call rather than something assumed to have been acquired a year earlier. This has long been my position, advanced before the reforms were initiated and repeated during the Ghana School of Law stakeholder engagements leading to the passage of Act 1170.
In the alternative, if ADR is to remain within the LLB as sections 48 and 49 prescribe, the subject should be split along the very line the new structure draws between theory and practice. The LLB component should be confined to the theoretical foundations of ADR, namely its concepts and rationale, the statutory framework under Act 798 and the connected legislations, the leading jurisprudence, and comparative perspectives, and it should be taught and completed in the final year of the LLB, so that the foundation is laid at the point closest to professional training rather than in an early year and then set aside. The practical component, covering representation of clients in mediation and arbitration, the conduct of negotiation, the drafting of settlement agreements and arbitration agreements, the preparation of arbitration pleadings, and practice as a neutral, should then be constituted as a discrete subject of the LPT, taken together with Advocacy and Legal Ethics and Civil Procedure, whose skills it shares and reinforces. This division respects the statutory placement while curing its central defect, that is, theory would sit where theory is taught, practice would be taught and examined where practice belongs, and no lawyer would be called to the Bar without having performed, and been assessed in, the ADR functions that the rules of professional conduct and the statutes discussed above require of every practitioner.
Second, the subject should be taught as practice rather than as doctrine, as section 49 of Act 1170 itself rightly indicates. Its assessment should test what a lawyer must actually be able to do, be it to advise a client on the available modes of resolution, to conduct or represent a client in arbitration or mediation, draft a negotiated settlement agreement or an arbitration agreement, or to prepare arbitration pleadings. This calls for supervised simulations; mediation, arbitration and negotiation exercises; and drafting workshops, of the kind the professional stage already uses for advocacy.
Third, the reform should be matched by a route into practice. The bodies responsible for legal education should work with the Judiciary, the Legal Aid Commission and the Alternative Dispute Resolution Centre to establish a recognised pathway, and in time a scheme of accreditation, for lawyers who wish to practise as neutrals. The institutions that such lawyers would serve already exist in law; being the Centre under Part Four of Act 798, the ADR Division of the Legal Aid Commission under Act 977, the Court-Connected ADR programme, and the roster of mediators and arbitrators maintained by the National Labour Commission under section 155 of the Labour Act 2003. What is missing is the supply of trained neutrals to give those institutions effect.
Fourth, provision should be made for the Bench. Since judges are drawn from the Bar, a profession trained in ADR will, in time, yield a Bench that understands the role of ADR in effective justice delivery and is equipped to discharge the settlement and supervisory functions provided for by statute, including those that CI 133, the Land Act, the Courts Act and Act 1079, among many other statutes, confer on it. In the interim, and to reach judges already appointed, the reform should be accompanied by in-depth continuing judicial education in ADR, so that the transition does not have to wait a generation.
Finally, the reform should be placed in its regional and international setting. Ghana’s ambition to serve as a centre for ADR in Africa, and to take a full part in the dispute resolution architecture of the AfCFTA, depends on a professional base competent in negotiation, conciliation, mediation and arbitration. Constituting ADR as a subject of the professional stage is the foundation on which that ambition must rest, and it would sit naturally alongside the ratification of the Singapore Convention on International Mediatied Settlement Agreements for which I have argued.
Conclusion
To place ADR within the Pre-Bar Course is to treat as accessory that which our law treats as central. The rules of professional conduct make competence in ADR a condition of ethical practice, breach of which may amount to misconduct. The rules of court make the ADR enquiry a step in civil procedure. The statutes make ADR a precondition of access to the court in land, labour, banking and other matters, one-third of the structure of legal aid, and a duty imposed by statute upon defence counsel in criminal negotiations. The Bench that must supervise these processes is drawn from a Bar which, under the current proposal, will undergo no rigorous ADR training or examination at the professional stage. Comparable jurisdictions, in Africa and beyond, already train ADR at the professional stage. And the trade and investment system that Ghana has joined accords primacy to amicable resolution. None of this is peripheral. It is the shape of dispute resolution in Ghana, in Africa and in the wider world, and it has been established openly over more than two decades. ADR is no longer an optional or introductory subject. It is a core professional competence. Act 1170 affords a rare opportunity to design a profession suited to that reality. I urge the Director of Legal Education, the General Legal Council, and the incoming Council for Legal Education and Training to reconsider the classification and to place Alternative Dispute Resolution within the Law Practice Training Programme, where students may acquire the practical, ethical and advocacy skills necessary to employ ADR effectively in practice.
Our elders put it best: ‘nunya, adidoe, asi metunɛ o.’ Literally translated, “Knowledge is a baobab tree, and no single pair of arms can embrace it,” meaning ‘no single person is a repository of all wisdom’. Justice is such a tree. Litigation alone cannot embrace it, nor can it claim to be the sole vessel through which justice flows. A profession trained in the full breadth of dispute resolution is a profession whose arms reach further around the tree, dispensing justice where courtroom litigation cannot reach.
[1] Legal Education Act, 2026 (Act 1170), ss 22–29; ‘Govt Announces Transitional Measures for LLB Graduates under New Legal Education Act’ (Modern Ghana, 13 June 2026) <https://www.modernghana.com/news/1501935/govt-announces-transitional-measures-for-llb-gradu.html > accessed 20 August 2026.
[2] ‘Legal Education Reform: Assafuah Questions Possible Return of Entrance Exams under New Bar Training System’ (MyJoyOnline, 14 June 2026) <https://www.myjoyonline.com/legal-education-reform-assafuah-questions-possible-return-of-entrance-exams-under-new-bar-training-system/> accessed 20 August 2026; ‘Pre-Bar Fee Set as Ghana Clears Law School Backlog’ (News Ghana) https://www.newsghana.com.gh/pre-bar-fee-set-as-ghana-clears-law-school-backlog/ accessed 20 August 2026.
[3]Legal Education Act, 2026 (Act 1170), ss 48 to 49.
[4] Modern Ghana (n 1); ‘Atuguba Unveils Roadmap for Law School Reforms, Clears Way for Backlog Students’ (Asaase Radio, 13 June 2026) https://asaaseradio.com/atuguba-unveils-roadmap-for-law-school-reforms-clears-way-for-backlog-students/ accessed 20 August 2026.
[5] Legal Education Act, 2026 (Act 1170), s 62.
[6] Director of Legal Education, Interim Policy Directives on the Transition to the New Legal Education Regime (12 June 2026), as reported in Modern Ghana (n 1) and Asaase Radio (n 4).
[7] Legal Education Act, 2026 (Act 1170), s 62.
[8] Legal Profession (Professional Conduct and Etiquette) Rules 2020 (LI 2423), made under the Legal Profession Act 1960 (Act 32), ss 23 and 53. LI 2423 revoked the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct and Etiquette) Rules 1969 (LI 613).
[9] LI 2423, r 29(1).
[10] LI 2423, r 66(1) to (3).
[11] LI 2423, r 32(1) and (2). See also r 24 (a lawyer who has acted as a judge, arbitrator, mediator or other neutral in a matter may not later act for a party in that same matter).
[12] LI 2423, r 96(1) and (2).
[13] LI 2423, r 84.
[14] High Court (Civil Procedure) (Amendment) Rules 2020 (CI 133), amending the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2004 (CI 47).
[15] ibid, Order 32.
[16] CI 133, amending CI 47, Order 58 r 4.
[17] Practice Directions on Court-Connected ADR (under CI 133) 2024; Practice Directions on Commercial Pre-Trial Settlement (under CI 133) 2024, both issued by the Chief Justice as part of the LEADing Justice Initiative and guided by the Courts Act 1993 (Act 459), s 72, and the Alternative Dispute Resolution Act 2010 (Act 798), ss 63 and 64.
[18]Alternative Dispute Resolution Act 2010 (Act 798).
[19]Arbitration Act 1961 (Act 38), repealed by Act 798; UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration 1985 (as amended 2006).
[20] Act 798, Part Four (ss 114 to 124).
[21] Act 798, ss 7 (reference of an action or part of an action to arbitration), 64 (reference to mediation by the court) and 91 (reference to customary arbitration by the court).
[22] Land Act 2020 (Act 1036), s 98(1).
[23] Act 1036, ss 115 and 15(1)(d) and (c)(iii).
[24] Republic v High Court (Labour Court 1), Accra; Ex parte A&C Development Co Ltd & 3 Others (Supreme Court of Ghana, Civil Appeal No J5/63/2022, 26 July 2022), holding that s 98 of the Land Act 2020 (Act 1036) does not oust the jurisdiction of the courts in land disputes and applies only to disputes arising in the course of the registration of title or an interest in land within a registration district, consistently with s 12(1) of the repealed Land Title Registration Act 1986 (PNDCL 152) as interpreted in Boyefio v NTHC Properties Ltd [1997-98] 1 GLR 768; summarised in B&P Associates, ‘Republic v High Court (Labour Court 1), Accra; Ex parte A&C Development Company Limited & 3 Others’ (Judicial Insights, 18 January 2024) https://bpaghana.com/republic-v-high-court-labour-court-1-accra-ex-parte-ac-development-company-limited-3-others-civil-appeal-no-j5-63-2022-delivered-on-26th-july-2022-supreme-court/ accessed 20 August 2026.
[25] Labour Act 2003 (Act 651), Part XVIII (National Labour Commission).
[26] Act 651, ss 153 (negotiation), 154 (mediation), 155 (list of mediators and arbitrators), 156 (appointment of arbitrators), 157 (voluntary arbitration), 158 (arbitration award) and 164 (compulsory arbitration). See also the National Labour Commission Regulations 2006 (LI 1822).
[27] Act 651, s 159.
[28] Legal Aid Commission Act 2018 (Act 977), s 20, establishes the Citizens Advisory Division, the Public Defenders Division and the Alternative Dispute Resolution Division.
[29]ibid, s 23(a).
[30]ibid, ss 49 and 50.
[31]ibid, combined effect of ss 23, 24 and 25.
[32]Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) (Amendment) Act 2022 (Act 1079), inserting ss 162A–162Q into the Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) Act 1960 (Act 30). Earlier, narrower provisions for negotiated pleas appear in Act 30, s 239(2)–(3); the Courts Act 1993 (Act 459), s 35; and the Narcotics Control Commission Act 2020 (Act 1019), s 47.
[33]Act 30, s 162A(3) (as inserted by Act 1079).
[34]Act 30, s 162A(2) (as inserted by Act 1079). The scheme excludes a list of the most serious offences, including high treason, rape, defilement, genocide, robbery, kidnapping, murder and offences relating to public elections.
[35] Statement of the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice (26 July 2022) announcing training on Act 1079 for judges, prosecutors, the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Prisons Service. see ‘President Assents to Plea Bargaining Law’ (Ghana News Agency, 27 July 2022) https://gna.org.gh/2022/07/president-assents-to-plea-bargaining-law/ accessed 22 August 2026.
[36] See for example, Banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930) s 141; Energy Commission Act, 1997 (Act 541) ss 20 to 21; Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice Act, 1993 (Act 456); Chieftaincy Act, 2008 (Act 759) s 30; National Petroleum Authority Act, 2005 (Act 691) ss 46 to 47; Insurance Act, 2021 (Act 1061), among many others.
[37] Courts Act 1993 (Act 459), ss 72 (civil) and 73 (criminal).
[38] Queen Mary University of London and White & Case LLP, 2025 International Arbitration Survey: Experiences, Preferences and Enforcement (2025), finding that 87 per cent of respondents, including corporate counsel, prefer international arbitration, alone (39 per cent) or combined with ADR (48 per cent), for resolving cross-border disputes https://www.qmul.ac.uk/arbitration/research/ accessed 20 August 2026; A Gerkman and L Cornett, Foundations for Practice: The Whole Lawyer and the Character Quotient (IAALS 2016), an empirical survey of over 24,000 lawyers on the competencies required of new entrants to the profession https://iaals.du.edu/publications/foundations-practice-whole-lawyer-and-character-quotient accessed 20 August 2026. See also n 44 below and the discussion of LI 2423, rr 29 and 66, above.
[39] ‘ADR Remains Vital to Strengthening Ghana’s Justice Delivery System — Chief Justice’ (Ghana Business News, 17 March 2026) <https://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2026/03/17/adr-remains-vital-to-strengthening-ghanas-justice-delivery-system-chief-justice/> Accessed 22 August 2026
[40] ‘Baffoe-Bonnie: Ghana’s Courts Inundated with Cases’ (Citi Newsroom, 10 November 2025) <https://www.citinewsroom.com/2025/11/baffoe-bonnie-ghanas-courts-inundated-with-cases/ >Accessed 22 August 2026
[41] ‘Embrace ADR, It Is the Way to Go — Chief Justice Urges Public’ (Judicial Service of Ghana, 25 November 2025) https://judicial.gov.gh/index.php/publications/news-publications/js-latest-news/item/553-2025-11-25-14-11-00 accessed 22 August 2026
[42] Kenya School of Law, Curriculum for the Advocates Training Programme 2020 (Kenya School of Law, 2020) 24 (ATP 104: Trial Advocacy, subject content, item xvii) and 38–39 (ATP 110: Pupillage, subject content, item viii and mode of delivery) https://www.ksl.ac.ke/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Final-ATP-Curriculum-Revised-2020-March-10.pdf accessed 22 August 2026; Kenya School of Law Act, 2012 (Kenya); Kenya School of Law (Training Programmes) Regulations, 2015 (LN 175/2015) https://new.kenyalaw.org/akn/ke/act/ln/2015/175/eng@2022-12-31 accessed 22 August 2026.
[43] Constitution of Kenya 2010, art 159(2)(c); Kariuki Muigua, ‘Constitutional Supremacy over Arbitration in Kenya’ (KMCO, 2018) http://kmco.co.ke/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Constitutional-Supremacy-over-Arbitration-in-Kenya.pdf accessed 22 August 2026; Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Kenya Branch, ‘Why Alternative Dispute Resolution Matters in Kenya Today’ (CIArb Kenya, July 2025) https://ciarbkenya.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Why-Alternative-Dispute-Resolution-Matters-in-Kenya-Today.pdf accessed 22 August 2026.
[44] Legal Education (Consolidation, Etc) Act, Cap L10, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004; Council of Legal Education, ‘Nigerian Law School Bar Part II Academic Calendar for 2025/2026 Academic Session’ reported in ‘Nigerian Law School Releases Bar Part II Academic Calendar for 2025/2026 Academic Session’ (Campus News, 25 February 2026) https://www.campusinfo.com.ng/nigerian-law-school-releases-bar-part-ii-academic-calendar-for-2025-2026-academic-session/ accessed 22 August 2026; LawPàdí, ‘How to Become a Lawyer in Nigeria’ (LawPàdí, 25 December 2022) https://lawpadi.com/how-to-become-a-lawyer-in-nigeria/ accessed 22 August 2026.
[45] OM Kuforiji, ‘Get Familiar: Nigerian Law School Courses and Outlines’ (E-Legal Aid, 22 October 2015, updated 8 October 2016) <https://elegalaids.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/get-familiar-nigerian-law-school-courses-and-outlines/>, accessed 22 August 2026.
[46] High Court of Lagos State (Civil Procedure) Rules 2019, Order 3 Rule 11 and Practice Direction No 2 of 2019 on Pre-Action Protocol Bundle; Kevin Martin Ogwemoh, ‘Dispute Resolution’ (paper presented at the Nigerian Law School, May 2019) <https://www.kmo.legal/2019/05/21/dispute-resolution-paper-presented-at-the-nigerian-law-school/> accessed 22 August 2026.
[47] Daphine Apio, ‘LDC Adopts New Curriculum’ (Daily Monitor, 18 October 2023) <https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/ldc-adopts-new-curriculum-4404752> accessed 22 August 2026; Law Development Centre, ADR Guiding Notes Term 1 2024 (LDC, 2024) <https://www.scribd.com/document/914534373/LDC-ADR-Guiding-Notes-Term-1-2024-1> accessed 22 August 2026.
[48] Law Development Centre, ‘Post Graduate Bar Course 2024/25 Second Intake Academic Calendar’(LDC, 2025) — examination timetable listing Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as a separately assessed subject in both course tests and final written examinations <https://www.studocu.com/row/document/uganda-christian-university/law/second-intake-jan-6-2025-to-dec-12-2025-ay-2024-25/116819467 accessed 22 August 2026; Law Development Centre, ‘Post Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice (Bar Course)’ (LDC) <https://www.ldc.ac.ug/> accessed 22 August 2026.
[49]Andrew Victor Naimanye, ‘Abodo Urges Bar Course Students to Embrace ADR as Core Legal Practice’ (Nile Post, 12 March 2026) <https://nilepost.co.ug/news/327021/abodo-urges-bar-course-students-to-embrace-adr-as-core-legal-practice> accessed 20 August 2026; Hon Lady Justice Jane Frances Abodo, ‘Alternative Dispute Resolution: The Quickest Dispute Resolution Mechanism in the Administration of Justice in Uganda’ (Law Development Centre) <https://www.ldc.ac.ug/alternative-dispute-resolution-the-quickest-dispute-resolution-mechanism-in-the-administration-of-justice-in-uganda/> accessed 20 August 2026.
[50]Legal Practice Act 28 of 2014 (South Africa), which makes practical vocational training a requirement for admission; Law Society of South Africa (LEAD), ‘Compulsory Practical Vocational Training Explained’ <https://www.lssalead.org.za/course-all-categories/compulsory-practical-vocational-training/> accessed 20 August 2026; LEAD’s vocational curriculum includes intensive civil mediation, divorce mediation and arbitration training: Law Society of South Africa (LEAD) <https://www.lssalead.org.za/> accessed 20 August 2026.
[51] General Council of the Bar of South Africa, ‘Mission Statement’ (GCBSA, para 3) <https://gcbsa.co.za/about/> accessed 22 August 2026: ‘By providing this representation, as well as facilities for the protection of human rights, access to justice for indigent persons and alternative dispute resolution, the bar serves all the people of South Africa.’
[52] Clement J Mashamba, Alternative Dispute Resolution in Tanzania: Law and Practice (Mkuki na Nyota Publishers 2014) xvi; Law School of Tanzania Act No 05 of 2007 (Tanzania); Law School of Tanzania< https://www.lst.ac.tz >accessed 22 August 2026.
[53] Institute of Legal Practice and Development, Prospectus 2024–2025 (ILPD, 2024) 9 (Module 5: Alternative Disputes Resolutions) and 41–42 (Module 7: Family Mediation) and 47–48 (Module 4: Contract Management and Dispute Resolution) <https://www.ilpd.ac.rw/fileadmin/user_upload/ILPD/Documents/Key_Documents_and_Policies/ILPD_Prospectus_2024-2025.pdf> accessed 22 August 2026; Rwanda Bar Association Law, art 6(3); Law No 65/2013 of 27/08/2013 Establishing the Institute of Legal Practice and Development (Rwanda).
[54]Solicitors Regulation Authority, ‘SQE1 Functioning Legal Knowledge Assessment Specification’, under which Dispute Resolution is assessed as a Functioning Legal Knowledge subject in FLK1, including ‘arbitration, mediation and litigation as an appropriate mechanism to resolve a dispute’,< https://www.sra.org.uk/globalassets/documents/sra/sqe1-functioning-legal-knowledge-assessment-specification.pdf > accessed 20 August 2026.
[55] Bar Standards Board, ‘Civil Litigation and Evidence: Bar Training Syllabus 2025–2026 Syllabus Texts’ (BSB, 2025)<https://www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/asset/0E1B2C9B-448E-4AAF-9B17488DC7CB265D/> accessed 22 August 2026; Bar Standards Board, ‘Civil Litigation and Evidence: Bar Training Syllabus 2026–2027’’ (BSB, 2025) <https://www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/static/b752d8b3-729c-462b-a3876a3ed4a2d691/BT-Civil-Litigation-Updated-Syllabus-2026-2027.pdf > accessed 22 August 2026.
[56] Protocol on Rules and Procedures on the Settlement of Disputes (AfCFTA Disputes Protocol, adopted 21 March 2018), art 6.
[57] ibid, art 6 (1) and art 7.
[58] ibid, art 8.
[59] ibid, art 8 (6)
[60] Protocol to the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area on Investment (adopted 19 February 2023) (AfCFTA Investment Protocol / AIP) art 46; art 45 (dispute prevention and grievance management); art 44 (state-to-state dispute settlement); Annex to art 46 (rules and procedures for investor-state dispute resolution still under negotiation as of August 2026).
[61] United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (adopted 20 December 2018, entered into force 12 September 2020) (‘Singapore Convention on Mediation’). Ghana has signed but not ratified; Nigeria has ratified.
[62] Bakhita M Koblavie, ‘From Domestic Resolution to Global Enforcement: The Case for Ghana’s Ratification of the Singapore Convention on Mediation, and Lessons from Nigeria,’ The PALM (The People’s Accolade Law Magazine) (No 2, December 2025) 7 https://www.thepalmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/4-2025_.pdf accessed 20 August 2026.
[63] Act 798, Part Four (ss 114 to 124), establishes the Alternative Dispute Resolution Centre.
