A government official is commenting on a recent report that suggests some lawyers are providing poor legal advice to residential school survivors.
Daniel Ish is the chief adjudicator of the Independent Assessment Process.
This summer, he sent a memo out to lawyers telling them their fees could be reduced if they are found to be making mistakes on the cases of former students.
Ish says 10,000 cases have been heard so far by the IAP.
Of those, he says a few glaring errors have been documented by the adjudicators — including cases where lawyers have had no communication with a claimant before a hearing, appear at the hearing with the wrong claimant, or are responsible for delays in the prosecution of files.
However, Ish says these appear to be isolated cases of “poor lawyering” and he doesn’t think there is a widespread problem.
The IAP will wrap up on September 19th, 2012.