Pro Bono Practices and Opportunities in Ghana

Published on 15 November 2019 This is an overview of pro bono practices and opportunities in Ghana, including key practice rules, culture, obstacles to undertaking pro bono and sources of pro bono opportunities.

Pro bono legal services still remain a relatively unstructured concept in Ghana, although there are no specific obstacles to the provision of such gratuitous legal services in the country. Many Ghanaians cannot afford to pay a lawyer or advocate to represent them, and are therefore forced to rely on the voluntary assistance of relatives or friends who happen to be lawyers as a means of accessing justice. In recent times, there have been attempts to make it mandatory for all lawyers in Ghana to take up a number of pro bono cases every year. This would facilitate access to justice for all and help ingrain the provision of pro bono legal services as a moral and social obligation within the legal profession.