FROM DUSTY BENCHES TO THE BAR: My Journey Through the Ghana School of Law

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty." – Maya Angelou

There is a photograph I have kept in my mind, it is not framed. It is of a small wooden bench at Shama Methodist KG – low, dusty, wobbly, the kind that leaves chalk on your shorts. On it sits a boy holding a slate, that boy was me. If you had told that boy in 1990s that later he would be called to the Bar of the Supreme Court of Ghana as Dr. Eric Cobbinah, Esq., he would have laughed. Not out of disbelief, but out of distance. The distance between Shama Methodist KG and Ghana School of Law popularly called Makola is not geographical, it is sociological. This article is not a celebration of wigs and gowns. It is a reflection on what it means to pursue law after doctor of philosophy, and justice after development.

I. THE FOUNDATION: SHAMA METHODIST KG, SEKCO, UCC

I am a product of public basic education; Shama Methodist KG, Primary and JSS. It was there I first learned that scarcity does not mean absence of ambition. Sekondi College gave that ambition a creed: the school’s motto of Lux et Veritas (Light and Truth) taught me that intellect without service is vanity, and service without intellect is vulnerability. University of Cape Coast became my academic home. I gained admission to University of Cape Coast in 2005 and graduated in 2009. After graduation, I became a Teaching Assistant at the Faculty of Social Sciences during my National Service and completed my Maters in Development Management in 2011. Teaching taught me what degrees do not: that knowledge is only useful when it can be broken down for a first-year student at 7 a.m.

II. THE MOUNTAIN: THE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D.) AND ITS DISCONTENT

In March 2018, I began my Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in Management Science from Jiangsu University, PR. China with specialization in Organizational Behaviour/Human Resource Management which I completed in April 2021. A Doctor of Philosophy Degree is often misunderstood as the pinnacle of learning. In truth, it is the beginning of humility. It teaches you how much you do not know, and how much of what you think you know is contested.

My Ph.D. journey is three years of solitude, of theories that collapsed, of chapters that were rejected, of fieldwork on organizational variables like leadership, politics, corporate culture, commitment and how they influence performance at the Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies in Ghana. In April 2021 – just three years and one month after I started – I completed it. It was grace, not genius.

But after my Ph.D., I encountered a profound discontent that many development practitioners will recognize. I could diagnose the problems of fishermen and fishmongers with theoretical elegance, using Sen’s capabilities approach, using political economy, using governance frameworks. But I could not defend them. I recall a fishmonger at Abuesi whose smoking shed was demolished without adequate notice or compensation. I remember, a poor widow from Assorku/Essaman losing the farm land the husband left to her to the powerful in society. I could write a brilliant policy paper about her, she did not need a paper, she needed an injunction. Development, I learned, explains injustice. Law confronts it and a scholar who only explains without confronting is, at best, half-useful.

As Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. reminds us, "The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience." I had experience in governance, but I needed the logic of law. That realization propelled me back to the classroom.

So, just four months after completing my Ph.D., in August 2021, I enrolled for Bachelor of Laws Degree (LLB) at the Faculty of Law, University of Cape Coast. Many thought it absurd, why would a Ph.D. holder return to Level 200 to read Bachelor’s Degree in Law? My answer was simple: the market woman does not need my thesis; she needs my writ.

It was not romantic, it was tiredness, and tenacity but it was necessary. This is the first lesson I wish to leave for young scholars: do not let your highest degree become your final degree. The essence of a Ph.D. is not that you have finished learning, but that you have learned how to learn.

III. MAKOLA: THE REFINERY OF CHARACTER

There are two types of education, the first gives you certificates. The second breaks you, rebuilds you, and gives you conviction. My journey through the Ghana School of Law belonged to the second. When I entered Makola, I did not enter as a novice to academia. I entered with a Doctorate and years of public service as a former District Chief Executive and now Deputy Executive Director of the Fisheries Commission. Yet, within the hallowed lecture halls of the Ghana School of Law, I quickly discovered that Makola does not recognize pedigree, it recognizes perseverance.

Ghana School of Law is erroneously called a school, it is, in truth, a refinery. The first day I sat in class in my starched black suit, white shirt and black trousers, clutching my statute books, my doctoral title felt irrelevant. In that room, we were all equal before the law – a 24-year-old first-class LLB graduate and a 38-year-old Ph.D. holder both struggling to distinguish between ratio decidendi and obiter dictum. The rigour was humbling, Civil Procedure with its interlocutory applications. Evidence Law with its hearsay exceptions. Advocacy where your voice shakes even when your law is sound. Criminal Procedure where liberty hangs on a technicality. There were nights I left my office at the Fisheries Commission at 5:30pm, sat in Accra traffic for an hour, entered a lecture hall at 6:30pm, and left at 9:30pm mentally drained, only to open my books again at 11pm until 2am. Makola teaches you that intellectual stamina is more important than intellectual brilliance.

IV. GHANA SCHOOL OF LAW AND TWO MASTER OF LAWS (LLMs) AT ONCE

In October 2024, when I gained admission to the Ghana School of Law, in that same month, I also gained admission to the University of Ghana School of Law to pursue Master of Laws (LLM) in Corporate and Commercial Law. I decided to do both thanks to Soul Demure. So my first year at Ghana School of Law was not just Ghana School of Law, I was a Professional Law Course student at Makola by day, and an LLM Corporate and Commercial Law student at Legon by evening. My brain was on fire, my body was tired, my notes were conflicting – Makola advocacy versus Legon corporate jurisprudence.

It was tiring beyond words, but God gave me strength. I graduated with the LLM in Corporate and Commercial Law in February 2026.

Interestingly, as if that was not enough, my final year at Ghana School of Law coincided with me enrolling for another LLM in Energy Law at the University of Ghana School of Law. Energy Law because I work at the Fisheries Commission where the Government’s blue economy agenda, intersect with oil, gas and fisheries resources and there is the need to understand the synergy. So, for two years in Ghana School of Law, I did two LLMs from University of Ghana School of Law while pursuing the Professional Law Course. Master of Laws in Corporate and Commercial Law and LLM in Energy Law, alongside the Professional Law Course. Only grace can explain it, only God.

V. THE COMMUNITY Of STRUGGLE

Yet, in that furnace of pressure, I found one of the most profound human communities of my life. We were bankers, pastors, police officers, customs officers, engineers’, young mothers nursing babies between lectures, entrepreneurs. We shared not just notes, but anxieties, gari, groundnuts, plaintain chips, past questions, and prayers. We had our kitchen in the study room, the rice cooker, deep freezer, micro wave to heat our kakoo stew, groundnut soup inter alia.

We formed study groups where we interrogated each other mercilessly. "Counsel, what is the principle in Salomon v Salomon?" "Counsel, can you distinguish murder from manslaughter under Section 46 of Act 29?" We failed together, we laughed together, we survived together. Makola taught me that law is not a solitary pursuit; it is a communal commitment to reason.

THE MOMENT OF CALL: TEARS OF MEANING

When the final results were released and I saw my name among those who had satisfied the requirements for Call to the Bar, I did not celebrate loudly. I sat alone in my study room and wept; I wept not for the title Esq. – for I had already earned the highest academic qualification of Ph.D. but for what it signifies. Not out of pride, but out of perspective, for the boy on the dusty bench at Shama Methodist KG, I wept because today, that same young man can now stand before a court and say: "May it please the court, I appear for the poor, the fisherfolk, the vulnerable, and I seek justice."

Today, that boy is Dr. Eric Cobbinah Esq., Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ghana.

My Ph.D. taught me to understand the world. My Barrister-at-Law taught me to defend those who live in it.

My Ph.D. taught me to understand justice.
My LLB taught me to interrogate it.
Makola taught me to defend it.
Today, I am Dr. Eric Cobbinah, Esq.
The Ph.D. is my mind.
The Esq. is my mission.
The Ph.D. taught me to write about justice. The Ghana School of Law taught me to fight for it.

GRATITUDE AND A WORD TO THE NEXT CHILD

No one climbs alone. This gown is woven with many hands. To my SOUL DEMURE – you are my peace, my anchor, my intercessor and my motivator this Call is ours. To Christopher Amoesi, Esq. and Joshua N. Agbogbo, Esq. (Bishop)…. I call you SUNSUM – you were my brothers, my counsel, my concordance. Thank you for never tiring of my questions and for your immense support throughout this journey.

To my father, Emmanuel Cobbinah (Uncle Konan) and Chairman Borlu – from first degree to Masters, Ph.D. you spent a lot. You bought a lot of books when money was scarce. Your sacrifice is stitched into this gown. To Hon. Emelia Arthur – you laid the foundation, you made me. To Prof. Benjamin Campion, my boss at the Fisheries Commission – you modeled servant leadership. You would say, “Man, disappear and go and prepare for the exams… you must pass at all cost… we will take care of everything until you are done.” That permission was my preservation.

To my mother – your midnight prayers followed me from Shama Methodist KG to Makola. You are my first Senior Advocate and to all I cannot name – lecturers at UCC and UG, my Makola study group, colleagues at Fisheries Commission, the people of Shama – Me Da Mo Ase Pii.

Finally, to the child sitting today on a dusty bench at Shama Methodist KG, Primary or JSS, Your KG does not determine your Esq.

From Shama Methodist KG, Primary, JSS → Sekondi College → UCC (2009) → Teaching Assistant, Faculty of Social Sciences UCC→ Masters in Development Management (2011) → Ph.D. (March 2018 – April 2021) Jiangsu University → LLB, Faculty of Law, UCC (Aug 2021 – May 2024) → Ghana School of Law (Oct 2024) + LLM Corporate & Commercial Law, UG (Oct 2024 – Feb 2026) + LLM Energy Law, UG.

Per aspera ad astra – through hardships to the stars.

The journey from Dr. to Esq. is complete.
The journey of service with law has just begun.

Soli Deo Gloria – To God Alone Be the Glory.

The author: Dr. Eric Cobbinah, Esq., is a Development Scholar, Lawyer, and Deputy Executive Director of the Fisheries Commission.

He holds a B.A., M.A, Ph.D., LLB, BL, LLM (Corporate & Commercial Law) and is an LLM Energy Law Candidate. He is a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ghana.