"Against all odds": Latifa, 2025's top graduate, heads to Harvard Law
This story has significance for readers across Kenya and beyond.
- Latifa Teiya Fuseini finished first among 824 candidates admitted to the Bar in 2025, winning the highest honour of her graduating class
- Fuseini previously graduated with First Class Honours from university in 2023
- Her journey is driven by a personal mission to increase the number of Muslim Dagomba women entering the legal profession
Ghana's overall best law graduate of 2025, Latifa Teiya Fuseini, has secured a place at Harvard Law School, capping a run of academic achievements that has drawn widespread admiration across the continent.
Legal Academy announced the news on August 16, 2026, through a social media post marking her progression from the top of Ghana's bar examinations to one of the most competitive law schools in the world.
From Achimota to First Class Honours
Fuseini completed her secondary education at Achimota School in 2019 and went on to study law at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where she graduated with First Class Honours in 2023, recording a Cumulative Weighted Average of 71.58.
Her performance at the Ghana School of Law took her achievements even further.
Out of 824 candidates called to the Ghanaian Bar in 2025, she came out on top, earning the John Mensah Sarbah Memorial Prize, the institution's highest honour for its finest all-round student.
She also received the award for Best Student in Conveyancing and Drafting, a recognition of her particular strength in property law and legal documentation.
A Mission Rooted in Community
Fuseini is the daughter of Alhaji A B A Fuseini, a former Member of Parliament for the Sagnarigu Constituency in Ghana's Northern Region.
In past interviews, she spoke openly about what drew her into the law, citing the historically small numbers of Muslim Dagomba women in the profession as the driving force behind her ambitions.
She has described her goal as pushing back against that underrepresentation and demonstrating to young women from Northern Ghana that legal careers are genuinely attainable.
Each prize and milestone, in her own telling, is meant to stretch the horizons of what younger generations from her community consider possible for themselves.
Legal Academy described the journey from Ghana's top graduate to Harvard admission as an achievement worthy of celebration, a sentiment that resonated widely with followers across Africa after the announcement was made.
Kenyan Lawyer Njeri Maina Pursues Harvard Law Master’s Years After Father’s Death
In a related development, TUKO.co.ke reported earlier that Kenyan lawyer Njeri Maina began pursuing her Master’s degree at Harvard Law School, years after her late father encouraged her to aim for the prestigious institution.
Maina said her journey to Harvard fulfilled a dream they had shared, adding another African success story to the institution’s law school community.
Source: TUKO.co.ke
Reporting originally appeared via TUKO. Read the full source for additional context.