Sophia Adinyira was born on September 1, 1949, in Cape Coast, the Central Region of Ghana. She attended Fijai Senior High School and Wesley Girls' High School for her 'O' Level and 'A' Level certificates respectively. Sophia was appointed as an Assistant State Attorney in 1974 following her call to the Ghana bar in 1973. She rose through the ranks to become Principal State Attorney in 1986. Sophia Adinyira began her journey at the bench in 1989 when she was appointed as a High Court judge. Ten years after, she was promoted to the Court of Appeal and was eventually appointed to the Apex Court of the land in 2006. Justice Adinyira was a member of the nine-member panel that heard and decided the "Election Petition "case of 2013. She also served as a Judge of the United Nations Appeal Tribunal (UNAT) from 2007 to 2016, sitting in New York and Geneva. With over 30 years of legal experience, Judge Adinyira took up diverse roles including Chairperson of the Disciplinary Committee of the Ghana Legal Council, Chairperson of the Board of Judicial Training of the Judicial Service of Ghana, and Chairperson of the Council for Law Reporting amongst others.

Adinyira’s drive for excellence transcends her successes in the judiciary to her religious life. Sophia is a member of the Anglican Church and has been the Provincial Chancellor of the Church of the Province of West Africa since 1993. In 2019, she was appointed the first female and lay Canon of the Cathedral Church of St. Peter in the Anglican Diocese, Koforidua. Justice Adinyira’s passion for child protection, juvenile justice, and women empowerment led to an award for her contribution towards enhancing the destiny of the child by the Ministry of Women and Children in Ghana. She bid farewell to the bench in 2019 with the delivery of her valedictory judgment in Centre for Juvenile Delinquency v. Ghana Revenue Authority (J1/61/2018) [2019] GHASC 29 where the Court unanimously ruled that the requirement of quoting one’s Tax Identification Number before filing a case was unconstitutional and violates the right of access to law courts.