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There are a number of supernatural events that happen as the plot of The Devil's Advocate unfolds, all of which center around John Milton's power.

Some examples of these:

  • Mary Anne & Eddie seeing characters "morph"
  • Mary Anne being visited and attacked by John while he is also in the courtroom (since Kevin sees him there)
  • Mary Anne seeing the boy in the apartment at night
  • Pam disappearing behind Kevin
  • Kevin seeing a normally busy street completely empty

Are these supposed to be real (actually happening as depicted), illusions created by John, or hallucinations which each character sees only because John has got into their head?

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The simplest answer, supported by TvTropes is that... all was just a dream (probably....).

From the moment Kevin is in the courthouse deciding to continue defending the pedophile to the moment he commits suicide. In the last scene, you can see him waking up in the courthouse bathroom and deciding to drop the case.

This explains all the supernatural events in the 95% of the movie, they were all hallucinations/dreams sent (most likely) by Milton to test Kevin. As you can see in the very last scene, Milton indeed has special powers, since he was able to alter his appearance.

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  • The last part you mentioned where Milton shows he can assume different appearances works for both theories (dream vs separate reality). It would explain all the supernatural parts related to characters/people, if Milton is just assuming these character's appearances. Either he could be able to temporarily "possess" real people (eg. Jackie Heath, muggers that killed Eddie) or these people are simply him in disguise and not real (eg. Pam vanishing). In relation to the empty street scene, either Milton is able to control that many people at once, or none of them are real, scary concept!
    – FrontEnd
    Aug 21, 2019 at 2:46

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