“…if it will not matter in ten years, it is not worth the weight you are giving it today.” – Albert M. Agyepong
Albert M. Agyepong is a corporate lawyer and legal academic based in Accra, Ghana. He holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and law degrees from Ghana and The Gambia. He is admitted to practice in Ghana and The Gambia and is awaiting admission to the New York bar. He is a Senior Associate at TaylorCrabbe, a full-service law firm. He leads the firm’s finance practice, where he advises clients on complex structured and project finance, Private Equity and general corporate law. He also advises development partners and the government of Ghana on policy and legislative reform. This includes lobbying and drafting. He manages the firm’s associates and interns. Albert is also a law lecturer at Ashesi University where he teaches Legal Writing, Legislative Drafting and Leadership. His academic research interests span ESG, Corporate Responsibility, AI and legal ethics, and corporate law. In his spare time, he plays golf and squash. Albert is an avid Manchester United fan.
1. The Driving Force for Choosing the Legal Profession
Albert M. Agyepong’s story is, by his own admission, one of serendipity rather than singular ambition. After completing secondary school, the path ahead was anything but clear. Economics beckoned, having been a subject he excelled in; his father envisioned a career in land economy, and there was a fleeting aspiration to become a pilot. It was fate, as much as deliberate choice, that led him to a law school, and what followed was, in his words, the experience of “a duck finding water.”
What began as an accidental introduction has since grown into a vocation defined by purpose. For Albert, the enduring fulfilment in legal practice is derived from the thrill of problem-solving in a context that demands creativity and ingenuity. Practicing law in Ghana, a developing country with complex socio-economic realities means that conventional solutions are rarely sufficient. The work demands an ability to see problems differently and to construct solutions that are both legally sound and practically workable.
There is also a deeply personal dimension rooted in a sense of legacy. When Albert drives through Ghana and encounters infrastructure, institutions, and enterprises to which his legal work has contributed, however modestly, the satisfaction is immediate and tangible. He is able to say, with quiet conviction, that he played a part in making something happen. That same spirit extends to his students at Ashesi University, where he lectures in the Department of Law and Public Policy. The ability to transmit a sense of professional purpose and intellectual rigour to the next generation of legal minds is, for him, among the most meaningful dimensions of the profession.
2. Qualities of an Exceptional Lawyer and How Young Professionals Can Cultivate Such Attributes.
In Albert’s view, the foundational quality of an exceptional lawyer is intellectual curiosity and, crucially, curiosity that extends well beyond the law itself. A sound grounding in legal doctrine is, of course, non-negotiable; it is the baseline. But what separates the good lawyer from the truly exceptional one is the breadth of their intellectual engagement. The most effective practitioners today are those who understand how technology works, how financial markets function, how capital is structured, and how engineering and industrial processes shape the regulatory environment in which they operate. The law does not exist in isolation, and lawyers who treat it as such will invariably be limited in the counsel they can offer.
The second quality Albert identifies is humility; genuine, practised humility. This means a willingness to learn from every person and every experience, regardless of seniority or status. The most capable lawyers he has encountered are those who approached each client, each transaction, and each adversary as a potential source of insight.
The third quality is patience. The profession rewards those who resist the impulse for immediacy, whether in seeking professional advancement or in reaching for solutions. Some of the most effective legal strategies emerge not from the first instinct, but from the considered reflection that follows a night’s sleep.
Albert also added being creative. A lot of the challenges you’ll face will require you to be creative in your thinking. This doesn’t apply to just legal challenges but life in general. How you handle clients, junior and senior colleagues, regulators. You need to have that arrow of outside the box thinking in your quiver.
As for cultivation, Albert’s counsel is straightforward: you cannot become what you do not know. The first step is awareness, understanding what these qualities are and why they matter. The second is intentional, consistent practice. Excellence is not the product of occasional effort; it is the cumulative result of daily discipline. You become, ultimately, what you repeatedly do.
3. Significant Ongoing Project or Initiatives and Possible Impacts
Albert is currently developing a technology-driven initiative that, while not yet ready for public disclosure in its full dimensions, sits at the intersection of legal practice and access to justice. The project is conceived as a tool that will fundamentally alter how litigation lawyers interact with the courts, aiming to make that interaction faster, more transparent, and more accessible.
The ambition is not merely to improve workflow or reduce administrative friction, though those are welcome outcomes. The deeper aspiration is to lower the barriers to justice for ordinary citizens in Ghana. In a system where procedural complexity and resource asymmetry can be as consequential as the merits of a case, even modest technological interventions can have an outsized impact on who can access the courts meaningfully. If the project succeeds on the terms Albert has set for it, its effect should be felt not just by lawyers, but by the clients they serve.
4. Role Models and Impactful Books
Albert is candid in acknowledging that no single legal figure has shaped his entire journey. Rather, different individuals have been formative at different stages, each contributing a distinct perspective or exemplifying a quality he has sought to internalise.
Clement Kojo Akapame and Nana Tawiah Okyir occupy a particular place in his professional formation as practitioners who, through their rigour, their approach to mentorship, and their demonstration of what principled legal practice in Ghana looks like in action, providing an early and lasting model of what to aspire to.
Albert also speaks with evident admiration of the tenacity and writing craft of Thaddeus Sory, one of Ghana’s most recognisable legal voices, whose advocacy and published works set a standard for precision and conviction that he consciously draws upon. Furthermore, Professor MAS Mensa-Bonsu commands a particular respect for her rare ability to force genuine critical thinking – an intellectual demand that Albert regards as one of the most valuable gifts a legal educator can offer. Albert also speaks warmly of GuyLaine Charles, whose mentorship instilled in him a work ethic and professionalism that have remained defining features of his approach to practice.
On the question of reading, Albert’s answer is at once unexpected and revealing. The book that is most profoundly shaping his thinking at present is the Bible. He engages with it not merely devotionally, but as a text of remarkable philosophical and human insight. What strikes him most, he explains, is its recurring demonstration that the more things change, the more they remain the same a reminder, across centuries and civilisations, of the constancy of human nature. In a period of professional and personal intensity, it is providing him with both grounding and perspective.
5. Advice or Guiding Principles for Young Legal Professionals and Advocates Trying to Find their Place and Purpose in the Legal Terrain.
Albert is characteristically measured in prefacing his counsel. He is reluctant to present himself as an authority on guiding others when his own journey is very much in progress. But he offers what has guided him, in the spirit in which it was given to him: honestly and without pretension.
The first principle is faith in yourself. The legal profession is long, and the early years can be bruising. The conviction that you will, in time, find your footing is not naïve optimism but a necessary disposition for endurance.
The second is a counsel of proportion: if it will not matter in ten years, it is not worth the weight you are giving it today. The ability to distinguish between what is genuinely consequential and what is merely urgent is a skill that compounds in value over a career.
The third is to refuse the limitations of your own mind. The boundaries that constrain most people are self-imposed. Young lawyers, in particular, must resist the tendency to define their potential by their current circumstances.
The fourth is curiosity about the law, about the world, about disciplines and industries that seem, at first, to have nothing to do with legal practice. The most interesting legal minds are invariably the most broadly educated ones.
And the fifth, delivered with characteristic directness: Network. Network. Network. In a profession built on relationships and reputation, the connections you cultivate early will, in ways you cannot yet anticipate, determine the doors that open to you. Your place in the legal terrain will not be assigned to you, but it will be found.
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Editorial Team
Silver Obioha
Clinton Nyamongo
Kazeem Afolabi
Dikeledi Matlhagare
Tolulope Olasunkanmi
Sulaimon Badmus
Aya Hamdy
Princess Maake
Vera Enubianozor
Brandon Otieno
Oluwabusayo Awodele
Kyenpiya Wonang
Gift Nwoke
Jessica Odoh
Tracy Karumba
Mary-Jones Ossi
Halimah Oladunni
Mary Linus
Peter Momoh
Jessica Omoruyi
