Legal meetings cut short and since disbanded (8)
I believe the answer is:
forensic
'legal' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'meetings cut short and since disbanded' is the wordplay.
'meetings' becomes 'fora' (forum is a kind of meeting).
'cut short' means to remove the last letter.
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'disbanded' indicates anagramming the letters (I've seen this in other clues).
'fora' with its final letter taken off is 'for'.
'since' with letters rearranged gives 'ensic'.
'for'+'ensic'='FORENSIC'
(Other definitions for forensic that I've seen before include "Applying scientific method to crimes" , "Of the science of criminal investigation" , "Concerned with the scientific side of the law" , "Of scientists involved in legal investigations" , "Using science to investigate crime" .)