Be involved in a risky action - possibly ruinous to the litigant (5,8)
I believe the answer is:
court disaster
'be involved in a risky' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.
'action possibly ruinous to the litigant' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'action' could be 'disaster' (disaster is a kind of action) and 'disaster' is found within the answer.
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for court disaster that I've seen is " Ask for trouble".)