Ghana must develop legal technology solutions tailored to its laws, languages and institutional realities rather than depend heavily on imported artificial intelligence (AI) systems, the Chief Executive Officer of Margins ID Group, Mr Moses Baiden, has said.
He said locally developed legal technologies would be better positioned to reflect the country’s legal framework, commercial practices and the needs of communities that were often underserved by conventional legal services.
Mr Baiden made the call at the 2026/2027 Ghana Bar Association Annual Conference in Ada, where he delivered the keynote address on the theme: “150 Years of Ghana’s Legal Evolution: Transforming the Profession and Driving Its Future with Industry.”
His address, titled: “From Quill to Algorithm: 150 Years of Ghana’s Legal Evolution and the Future of the Ghanaian Lawyer,” focused on the implications of rapid technological change for the legal profession.
Mr Baiden said AI was already transforming aspects of legal practice, including legal research, document review, contract analysis, preparation of legal arguments and information management.
However, he cautioned that the adoption of technology must be accompanied by strong professional oversight, ethical standards and accountability.
“Artificial intelligence may become an exceptionally fast junior associate, but it would not bear professional responsibility,” he said.
He therefore urged lawyers to critically assess, test and correct AI-generated information before relying on it in professional work.
Mr Baiden said the legal profession would have to develop new competencies as technology reshaped the work of lawyers, clients and legal institutions.
He said the key challenge would increasingly be determining not only whether an answer could be found, but whether the answer generated by an AI system could be trusted.
Beyond the legal profession, he called on the courts, regulators and legal education institutions to modernise their systems to accommodate digital evidence, emerging technologies and evolving forms of legal practice.
Mr Baiden said technology also presented an opportunity to widen access to justice by making legal information and services more accessible to farmers, traders, small businesses and other underserved groups.
He, however, warned that poorly designed digitisation could worsen existing inequalities, particularly among people with limited access to technology.
Reflecting on Ghana’s legal history, he said technological tools had changed from the quill and typewriter to computers, email, cloud platforms and now AI, but the fundamental responsibilities of lawyers remained unchanged.
“The quill disappeared. The lawyer remained,” he said, stressing that the emergence of AI should not diminish the profession’s responsibility to uphold the law, protect rights and serve justice and humanity.
He urged Ghanaian lawyers to embrace technological change while ensuring that innovation remained firmly anchored in professional ethics and public trust.
