Is There Not A Cause.To Rant?

If talking about Ghana is a dice, Ace comes up tops.

Few lawyers engage the socio-political issues of their day as Ace Ankomah does. Ever since he gifted his voice and pen to the public cause, Ace has dissected, analysed and proffered solutions to national issues with a patriotic joie de vivre. Indeed, it is said that he invests as much effort on his clients’ cases as he does on the national front. Or does he?

Ace has participated in street demonstrations, has written, has debated, has sung, and has coined phrases which have gained currency in the national conversation. In this no-holds-barred journey through beautifully written essays, one encounters a writer burdened with the frustrations of a boxer whose hands have been held from behind, the frustration of not being able to punch crass illogicality. And so he rants. From constitutional lacunas to the paradox of cocoa, from building permits to the dilemma of akpeteshie, from ethnicity to the degraded texture of Milo...

Is There Not A Cause...to Rant? is what happens when a stammering, public-spirited private legal practitioner clears his chest about the Ghana he so dearly loves.

Ace Anan Ankomah is Managing Partner at the Accra-based law firm of Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa & Ankomah and the Head of the firm’s Litigation, Arbitration & Dispute Resolution Practice. He joined the firm as an Associate and proofreader of its Ghana law database in 1992. He has also worked as a Senior Lecturer (Civil Procedure) at the Ghana School of Law between 2005 and 2012, and as a Lecturer (Company Law) at the University of Ghana’s Business School from 1997 to 2003.

Born on 20 November 1967, Ace holds a Master of Laws degree (LL. M.) in International Taxation, earned in 1994 from the Queen’s University, Canada, and a Bachelor of Laws degree (LL. B.) from University of Ghana, Legon, earned in 1990. He was called to the Ghana Bar in 1992 after completing the Professional Law Course at the Ghana School of Law. He completed his Ordinary and Advanced Levels at the Mfantsipim School, Cape Coast, in 1984 and 1986, respectively. In 1986, he won Mfantsipim’s top academic awards, both the Senior Scholar Award (for the best overall graduating student) and the K. A. Busia Award (for the best graduating student in the humanities).

Ace is currently a Visiting Lecturer at the Ghana School of Law, where he conducts the Legal Writing & Editing Skills Seminar. He is also a member of the Panel of Arbitrators of the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and he served on the Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) for three years.

Ace is a founding member and director of the pressure group, OccupyGhana. He is a member of the Ghana Bar Association and a Fellow of both the Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN) and the Africa Leadership Initiative, West Africa (ALIWA). In 2015, the University of Ghana instituted the Ace Anan Ankomah Prize in Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law in his honour.

Ace writes music and plays several instruments but calls himself “just a sporadic songwriter and music hobbyist.” He is an Associate of the pioneering, contemporary gospel music group, Joyful Way Inc. and served as its Director of Music & Productions for several years, having a hand in every album produced by the group since 1991. He is married to Josephine and they have three children.

Ace has written several legal and law journal articles.