Articles taken by criminal lawyer, the snake! (8)
I believe the answer is:
anaconda
'the snake' is the definition.
(anaconda is a kind of snake)
'articles taken by criminal lawyer' is the wordplay.
'articles' becomes 'ana' (a and an are indefinite articles).
'taken by' says to put letters next to each other.
'criminal' becomes 'con' (abbreviation for 'convict').
'lawyer' becomes 'da' (D.A. is an example).
'ana'+'con'+'da'='ANACONDA'
(Other definitions for anaconda that I've seen before include "Large water snake" , "Huge South American snake" , "One may put squeeze on" , "Water boa" , "Large semiaquatic snake" .)