Well, I suppose the answer to the question depends significantly on what role you're in. Are you working for someone else or are you on your own? If you're working for someone else, ask them when you'll have your first trial. If you're working for yourself, do you have clients and/or what stage are their proceedings in? Generally it takes about a year for any matter to get from charge to trial in the GTA, though it could be faster if the client is in custody or if you're in another location. To cite the other major variable, the large majority of criminal files do not go to trial at all. The percentage that do go to trial is much higher when you've got more serious charges. As a new call, you're likely handling files both at their very start and also files with relatively low stakes. So it could, indeed, be quite some time before you get to a trial. I'll agree with Hegdis that you're probably placing a false amount of weight on cross-examination, like you think that the whole outcome of a case rests on that. In terms of basic skills, I'd actually say it's more important to get comfortable going through a few hundred pages of disclosure (that's a small file) getting a handle on what really matters in a case and figuring out what the theory of the defence even is. Very often, the weakness in the Crown's case won't be found in cross-examination at all. If you're hoping for some television-like experience, where you break a witness down on the stand and get them to admit they've been lying all along, that isn't going to happen. Generally speaking, the story isn't going to change. It's more about figuring out what facts really matter and how they relate to the law. Anyway, hope that's some help.

Some amount of travel, yes. There are some areas in Ontario where enough work is concentrated at a single court that a lawyer could reasonably restrict their practice to just that location. It tends to be the mid-sized urban centres where that happens. I'm thinking Barrie, or Hamilton. Even then you'd get calls to go to other courts but you could always refuse to take them if you had that luxury. I know of very few defence lawyers who don't drive, but I do know a few. It's possible, I suppose. But it's definitely going to limit your practice. And exactly because you can only get away with stuff like that when you work for yourself, the path to that sort of situation - where you get through working for someone else who requires you to travel, only to work for yourself where you don't - is pretty narrow. There's a reason almost every posting for an articling student in criminal defence requires access to a car. But it is possible. Just very unlikely and very uncommon.

Oh really? Post-OCI or was this pre-recruit

Thanks. Not something I can handle.

Sometimes you don’t need to cross at all. ESPECIALLY if the waters are muddy after direct. That typically benefits your client; that is a reasonable doubt.  A good cross is often pointed and brief. A meandering, wide ranging cross is usually not worth the time. Know your issue. Know the weak point.    I am not saying it’s always one way or another - but the quality beats mere quantity every time.