It is thus difficult for any researcher to find out exactly what the activities of the Bar Association were in those days. It was only relatively recently, in fact within the last quarter of the century, that our Bar Association has kept formal minutes of all its meetings and kept all other records maintained by important professional organisations worldwide.

The acquisition of permanent offices and working staff for the Bar Association is also a very recent occurrence and the maintenance of permanent offices by the Bar has been going on now for not many more than some twenty years. The Bar has had many leaders but apart from a few outstanding ones like Frans Dove there is no proper record of the office holders of the Bar before relatively recently in 1957, only some 39 years ago, from which time the Bar Association has regularly had a president, a secretary and treasurer and other members democratically elected in accordance with the constitution of the Bar.

The Bar Association drew up its first formal constitution and code of ethics in 1958 and from then on except for a few occasions when due to political reasons an annual conference has not been possible, the Bar Association has held a conference annually to take important decisions and to elect its officers who hold office for only one year but are eligible for reelection. The Bar Association considers that in this sense it is one of the most democratic institutions in this country and it is not for nothing that its members, from the first Ghanaian barrister, John Mensah Sarbah, onwards, have fought for the establishment and maintenance of democracy in this country.