A son exercises before court appearance (6)
I believe the answer is:
aspect
'appearance' is the definition.
(aspect is a kind of appearance)
'a son exercises before court' is the wordplay.
'son' becomes 's'.
'exercises' becomes 'pe' (Physical Education class).
'before' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'court' becomes 'ct' (abbreviation used in road names).
'a'+'s'+'pe'+'ct'='ASPECT'
(Other definitions for aspect that I've seen before include "'Appearance, outlook (6)'" , "The way something looks" , "Face" , "View, panorama" , "Scene, panorama" .)