US lawyer appearing in play now (5)
I believe the answer is:
today
'now' is the definition.
(I know that now can be written as today)
'us lawyer appearing in play' is the wordplay.
'us lawyer' becomes 'DA' (abbreviation for District Attorney).
'appearing in' is an insertion indicator.
'play' becomes 'toy' (synonyms).
'da' going inside 'toy' is 'TODAY'.
(Other definitions for today that I've seen before include "Modern times" , "Presently" , "At the present time, in general" , "Yesterday's tomorrow" , "one of our papers, once" .)