Mr. Chairman, a number of points were made by the Member. Let me first start by saying we are working to try to get more members to the private bar who would be interested in doing this type of legal aid work as it relates to civil matters. We are working cooperatively with the Law Society on recruitment and retention initiatives. We have been doing some joint work at ventures in the South to try to recruit more members into the bar. I think that is the answer. Ideally, we would like to not have this issue. Other larger jurisdictions have the luxury, where there are more members doing this kind of work, to insist that a staff lawyer from the government only represent one party. We would like to be able to insist on that in future. So we would need to continue to work. But in the interim, if we were to stipulate that we can only represent one party in a case, it would result in material delays to getting to court and seeing representation. That is our first aim, to see that all parties have competent and timely legal help, legal advice, legal representation.
So we would agree that the issue of disclosure is important and we are intending to make sure that both parties understand the nature of the relationship, the employment relationship. In fact, including that they are supervised by the same director and the employer is the Legal Services Board. So we would agree that it makes sense to provide that information, provide full disclosure and also go a step further in ensuring that both parties acknowledge that they understand this relationship, this employment relationship.
We do have a concern about seeking client consent. Members obviously know that any party can decide that they don't feel comfortable with this and they can walk away and go and find somebody in the private bar if they so choose for themselves. Our concern is having them, we think it would be potentially right for abuse, having them able to say they won't give their consent and forcing the other party to go and look for a lawyer in the private bar. There is the potential for that abuse and it would cause significant delays. So we agree with the disclosure. We agree that there should be some acknowledgement provision built in. We have a concern with the consent. Thank you.