Lawless pal was not in the right and had to pay the price for it (5)
I believe the answer is:
fined
'lawless pal was not in the right' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'had to pay the price for it' is the wordplay.
'had' becomes 'd' (in contractions e.g. 'I'd', 'you'd' etc).
'to' says to put letters next to each other (I've seen this in other clues).
'pay the price for' becomes 'fin' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'it' becomes 'e' ('e' can mean 'electronic' which is similar to 'IT').
'fin'+'e'='fine'
'd' after 'fine' is 'FINED'.
'and' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for fined that I've seen before include "Imposed financial penalty on" , "Fed in (anag.)" , "Ordered to pay penalty" , "Mulcted" .)