Unhealthy-looking lawyer meets unrefined characters in New York (7)
I believe the answer is:
scrawny
'unhealthy-looking lawyer' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'meets unrefined characters in new york' is the wordplay.
'meets' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'unrefined characters in' becomes 'scraw' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'new york' becomes 'ny'.
'scraw'+'ny' is 'SCRAWNY'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for scrawny that I've seen before include "Being underweight" , "Unhealthily thin" , "Skin-and-bones" , "Skinny" , "Thin and bony" .)