A few words on career, the most you can get out of a judge? (4,8)
I believe the answer is:
life sentence
'the most you can get out of a judge?' is the definition.
(maximum prison sentence from a judge)
'a few words on career' is the wordplay.
'a few words' becomes 'sentence' (I've seen this before).
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'career' becomes 'life' (career can mean someone's life or past).
'sentence' put after 'life' is 'LIFE SENTENCE'.
(Other definitions for life sentence that I've seen before include "short extract from American magazine" , "Long-term punishment" , "Gideon was born, later he died?" , "Very large bird" , "Long punishment" .)