Breakdown of La sentenza è stata un disastro per l'avvocato.
essere
to be
un
a / an (masculine)
per
for / in order to / because of
l'avvocato
the lawyer (m)
Questions & Answers about La sentenza è stata un disastro per l'avvocato.
Why does sentenza mean "ruling" here? Doesn't it mean "sentence"?
Sentenza is a legal false friend. It means a court's "ruling", "verdict", or "judgment" (and can also refer to a penal "sentence"). If you want to talk about a grammatical "sentence" like the one you are reading right now, you should use the word frase.
Why is it è stata (feminine) when the noun right after it is un disastro (masculine)?
Is è stata a passive voice construction here?
No, this is just the active voice in the passato prossimo tense. È stata simply means "was" (or "has been"). Essere takes itself as an auxiliary verb, so è (auxiliary) + stata (past participle of essere) forms the past tense.
Could I use an indirect object pronoun like gli instead of per l'avvocato?