The RAD process, as designed, was purely a paper process. There was no oral hearing. The reality is that with refugee claimants, because most are non-francophone, non-anglophone, and totally unfamiliar with the Canadian legal system, they need somebody to help them prepare their documents.
So the lawyer would be assembling the information from the refugee hearing, identifying what would be the error on which an appeal could be based, whether it was the failure to consider evidence properly or whether it was a jurisdictional error or whatever, and would analyze these problems. If there weren't going to be transcripts, they were going to get audiotapes or recordings of the hearing, and they would review that to see if they could identify an appealable error, and prepare a written submission for the RAD. The RAD would then review that written submission and make its decision. So the lawyer's role would be actually preparing that written submission.
It's very similar to what lawyers currently do on leave for judicial review applications, but the difference is that instead of being leave for judicial review and then going to judicial review, they'd be going for the ring, as it were, because the RAD would have the authority to enter the correct decision.