Dr. Don Thornhill:

Dr. Doherty might want to come in on this as well. There are no price control provisions in the Act. It does not state that we can regulate the fees that will be charged. The Act also provides for an office of legal costs adjudicators which is independent from us. The role of the office will be a public one and one hopes it will, over time, establish norms that will be viewed as reference prices. In other words, the consumer would be aware of what the going rate is for the provision of certain types of legal services. If we take an example at the other extreme, a consumer going into a supermarket has a general idea of the price of particular commodities in the supermarket and whether it is an expensive store and he or she will make decisions accordingly. The other factor is that we have no role in the management of the Courts Service or the management by the Judiciary of its processes. There are a number of actors in the legal costs area.