jsherk wrote:

I base it on experience ... having hired lawyers in the past (before I understood the process), they would literally wait until trial date to get disclosure and then just basically accept the deal the prosecutor offers without putting any time or effort into possible ways to fight it.

A good lawyer would be requesting disclosure ahead of time and then have a plan and suggest possible ways to fight the charge with the pros/cons and would also suggest the benefits of accepting a deal.

I agree that sometimes accepting a deal is the best option, but my experience has been that too many lawyers/paralegals would rather just take your money for getting you a deal which you could have easily made yourself.

This is my opinion and you are welcome to disagree with it, but your disagreements won't change my opinion.

Must have been a while since you've been involved with traffic court in Ontario.

Here's the way it works;

Client retains a paralegal or lawyer - NIA is filed - Notice of Trial is received - when that occurs, a Disclosure Request is submitted - all in a timely fashion.

Trial date approaches and you still don't have disclosure - what are you going to do? There's not much you can do.

You can bring a motion prior to arraignment requesting the charge be quashed - some jp's will, others (most) will not - doesn't really matter.

Crown is now on notice to provide it and a subsequent trial date is set.

When a Disclosure Request is received by the Crown - the office forwards it to the police department's court liason officer - most of those officers immediately email the subject (not to be confused with SIU) officer - that's it.

Now, the Crown and the liason officer are waiting for the notes, et al.

If the subject officer disregards or is too lazy to respond he jeopardizes his case - but the point is, it's out of everyone's hands other than the subject officer.

This is not an opinion.