Definitely a game of two halves. West went in OK. East somewhat less so and am now stuck mostly with a blank NE. Not sure if I have 1d correct though. I had two possibles from the crossers, one is an anachronism, the other a word. Ican't parse either.
Rocky7, I took 1d. def. as 'court serves'. I'm not sure if this is too much of a stretch, but if you put the first letter from 'claims' in front of the way the entry is pronounced, you could have a word that 'sounds like' 'lawsuits'.
Thanks Mattrom and Plutocrat. I have the right word at least. I'm still utterly stuck in the NE. I'm giving this a break and letting the subconscious take over. That usually works for me. I'm still musing over whether I have 10a right too as I've had to shoe horn different letters and words from the clue together to make it but feels clunky.