Dissenting group initially facing legal proceedings (7)
I believe the answer is:
faction
'dissenting group' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'initially facing legal proceedings' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'proceedings' could be 'action' (action is a kind of proceedings) and 'action' is present in the answer.
A single letter 'f' remains which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for faction that I've seen before include "Seeing political dissenters" , "part of party" , "Minority who dissents from main group" , "Rebellious group" , "group of rebels" .)