For the past three years, we’ve teamed up with Fordham Law School and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Affairs (GIMPA) Law School to run an annual Legal Ethics Training Program, a four-day interactive course for law students.

Historically only open to Ghanaian law students, this year’s course was the biggest and most successful yet, organized under the auspices of the African Center on Law & Ethics (ACLE), established last year by White & Case, Fordham Law School and GIMPA Law School, to help facilitate a growing commitment to legal ethics through research, scholarship and training.

It attracted 85 participants including, for the first time, lawyers and law students from the Gambia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Uganda.

Modelled on a legal ethics program White & Case helped launch in Russia nearly 10 years ago, this course teaches law students the main principles and rules central to professional legal practice.

It covers a broad range of issues, including codes of ethics regulation and enforcement, the relationship between attorneys and judges, confidentiality, and avoiding conflicts of interest.

Using practical exercises in small group sessions, the law students learn how ethical rules are implemented in commercial law practice.

With the participants hailing from an expanded list of countries, this year’s course addressed codes of ethics from the seven African countries.

Jennifer Paradise, Partner and General Counsel, helped design the curriculum and serves as faculty. She says: “Having students from several African countries brought different perspectives to our discussions and enriched the program.

“It is good to know that these students will take this important knowledge back home as they embark on their legal careers.”

Feedback from the participants has been highly positive. For several of the students, the program was the first time they had left their home countries.

One student expressed high praise for the course subjects, saying the material she learned throughout the week was vital to the practice of law and yet not taught in her law school.

She was also grateful for the opportunity to get to know so many students from other countries.

During the week, Jacquelyn MacLennan, Partner and Global Pro Bono Practice Leader, spoke about business and human rights and its growing importance. This was a new addition to the program.

She said: “It was wonderful to see how engaged and interested the participants were in this topic. Many told me it was the first time they had thought about these issues.”

White & Case faculty members in this year’s course included Jennifer, Jacquelyn, London Partner Mukund Dhar and Senior Manager of Global Citizenship Elizabeth Black.

There were sessions for high-level judiciary, experienced practitioners and academics to discuss their various perspectives on legal ethics, corruption, and the emerging field of business and human rights.

Her Ladyship Justice Sophia A.B. Akuffo, Chief Justice of the Republic of Ghana, opened the session entitled Comparative Perspectives on Legal Ethics: Building Cross Border Understanding, and spoke on the importance of legal ethics and the fundamental role it plays in strengthening the rule of law.

Dean Kofi Abotsi of GIMPA Law School serves as faculty and comments: “The importance of ethics in the legal profession cannot be understated.

“As lawyers, we have a duty to uphold the highest ethical standards. In promoting such conduct, we support the rule of law and ensure equivalent access to justice.”

Our work in Ghana has also won external recognition; in 2017, American Lawyer awarded the course its Global CSR Project of the Year award.