Our clients sometimes wonder if the "first appearance" date on their police documents is their trial date. No trial is held on the first court appearance. Often there are many appearances before even setting a trial date.

The reasons for the multiple court appearances are to permit you to hire a lawyer, to permit the Crown to complete their gathering of the disclosure (evidence) and to provide it to you and your lawyer to review.

Your lawyer will need to review the disclosure to make a recommendation to you about the defences available and the likelihood of success at trial. Your lawyer also needs the disclosure to determine how long the trial will be.