I warmly welcome you all to the Faculty of Law of the College of Humanities and Legal Studies of the University of Cape Coast (UCC).
 
The Faculty of Law, UCC was established in 2011. In 2005, the University administration started the process that led to the establishment of the Faculty. Professor Phillip Ebow Bondzi-Simpson was then appointed to spearhead the implementation process. The Academic Board of the University approved a three-year LLB programme in 2009 and an accreditation was granted by the National Accreditation Board to run a three-year programme in April 2013. In the same year, the Faculty admitted its first batch of students and the Founding Dean, Professor Bondzi-Simpson, led a team of legal academics and researchers who made the needed sacrifices to teach and mould the maiden cohort. Professor Obeng Mireku, was appointed the Acting Dean of the Faculty when Professor Bondzi-Simpson was appointed as the Rector of GIMPA. I, Kujo Elias McDave was appointed as the third Dean of the Faculty of Law, UCC, in September, 2017.

The mission of the Faculty is to produce law graduates with the knowledge, competence and skills to provide legal solutions to the problems confronting Ghana, Africa and the world at large; and to undertake cutting edge research to confront these problems. In addition, through collaborations with and education of the public, we work to make the community, the country and the continent a better place. The Faculty's vision is to become and remain one of Africa's best Law Faculties, providing rich, experiential, critical legal education.
The Faculty of Law, UCC has five (5) functional departments namely; the Department of Legal Studies which is in-charge of the LLB legal studies programme; the Department of Advanced Legal Studies which will take care of post graduate legal studies programme when the programmes are finally rolled out; the Department of Legal Extension which deals with outreach and extracurricular activities, such as the mandatory internships, the Roll Call, Jusrists’ Confab and Moots. The Centre of Legal Research, takes charge of research and publication activities of both Lecturers and Research Fellows and the Information Centre and Law Library.

The Faculty of Law, UCC has been tasked with taking students through legal studies where they pass with LLB degrees. Students are taken through training in the traditional law subjects such as Ghana Legal System, Law of Tort, Criminal Law, Law of Succession, International Law, Environmental Law, Commercial Law, Company Law, Law of Immovable Property, Insurance Law and some novel ones such as Sports Law, Medical Law, Education Law, Intellectual Property Law, Petroleum Law, Banking Law, among others. The students, at the end of their studies, should be able to function in various areas of law, be able to find cases to support their arguments, be able to engage in legal advocacy and legal research and the general work. The Faculty has begun taking the final year students who have completed their LLB programmes though preparatory classes towards the writing of their entrance examination into the Ghana School of Law.

Since the creation of the Faculty of Law, CHALS, UCC, in 2011, the Faculty has been able to graduate three batches of which members of the first two batches made it to the Ghana School of Law. Close to sixty percent of the first batch passed the entrance and interview and the second batch were close to about seventy percent of the class. Members of the maiden batch who successfully passed their exams and qualified are about to be called to be called to the Ghana Bar Association. The second batch are preparing to take their bar exams. The third batch are preparing to take their entrance examination to enter the Ghana Law School.

The Faculty has run and continue to run a three-year postgraduate programme which begins from Level 200 and end at Level 400. However, our Faculty is about to admit the first batch of Senior High School students to the SHS stream of the LLB programme for the 2018/19 academic year. They will have a four year study instead of the three-year study plan for the post graduate stream of students.

These SHS stream students will take university-wide core courses such as Communicative Skills, African studies and Liberal courses as any UCC undergraduate student and some Faculty courses such as Introduction to Law and Logical Reasoning. In the second year of studies, they will then join the 1st year postgraduate students at Level 200 till they complete their LLB programme.

The Faculty of Law, UCC has a unique tradition known as “Roll Call” where newly admitted students are matriculated and initiated into the Faculty to begin their legal studies beside the University-wide matriculation ceremony. Students of the second and final year classes who excelled in various areas of their studies are also awarded during the Roll Call ceremony. Another programme peculiar to the Faculty of Law, UCC is the “Jurists’ Confab”. This ceremony is also held annually where teachers of the law, the Bench and the Bar come together to discuss developments in the law and the way forward and a communique is issued. Some speakers at past Confabs are Justice S. Marful-Sau, Justice Dotse, Justic Sir Dennis Adjei, Justice S. A. Brobbey, Her Ladyship Georgina T. Wood, and Justice Professor Samuel Kofi Date-Baah, all of the Superior Courts of Ghana and Prof Henrietta Mensa Bonsu, University of Ghana.

The Faculty encourages learning not only in the classroom but outside the classroom as well. Our students are also to take mandatory internships in the second and third years of their study with institutions such as Legal Aid, the Superior Courts, with offices of some of the Justices, the House of Chiefs among others. This is to enable them acquire a direct hands-on training in all areas of legal practice. The Law Students’ Union (LSU) also organizes the annual programme known at the Legal Luminaries forum where people from the legal fraternity such as retired and practicing lawyers, judges and legal brains are invited to share their thoughts on pertinent legal developments. Some past guests are the then candidate Nana Addo Dankwah Akuffo Addo (now the president of Ghana), Justice VCRAC Crabbe, Ace Ankomah among other notable Ghanaians from the legal fraternity.

Our Faculty is also disability friendly and also gender sensitive. We make sure that everybody feels at home and is able to study at all times; in a congenial atmosphere.
I wish to use this opportunity to extend felicitations to prospective lecturers who wish to join us at the Faculty of Law, UCC and urge you to come join our family of legal academics and students. To students who have also gained admission to the Faculty to begin their legal studies, we welcome you all and urge you to take your studies seriously and also abide by all the rules of the Faculty and the University of Cape Coast at large.
 
Kujo Elias McDave
Dean.