[tgardner92102]

We started one of the adoptions three years ago. We used the same firm that we had used before, but a different attorney.
At first, everything was going well, so we thought. Then came the hearings. We would get a date for a hearing, and the attorney would call us up on the day of the hearing to tell us that it was continued. This happened about 4 times. Missed work, missed school., etc.
Then he came out and said that a few things with the case had to be fixed. Then communication stopped. I would call him, leave messages, and he would never call back. Late last year, I wrote him a letter expressing how unhappy I was about everything. Nothing had happened with our case for over a year, and I was mad. He called and left a message on my machine saying that the best thing to would would be to start the whole thing over. Everything that had been signed and done had since expired. I called him back, left a message, and he never called back. So I wrote him a letter taking him off the case and we hired a new attorney.
The new attorney went to the courthouse and got the old filings. There was a letter in there stating what was wrong with the case...a total of 8 or 9 things, a lot of them big no-no's. I only knew about one of these things (something to do with the original birth certificate). The old attorney never told me about anything else so we could get them fixed. Not only that, but the new attorney said that the case was so messed up that it couldn't be fixed. Things were written wrong, wrong papers were signed, things like that.
So now I am wondering if there is anything I can do to the old attorney to get some of our money back. We paid him over $1000 and 3 years of our lives.

[travsmom]

I can understand where you are coming from. We started a step parent adoption one year ago. At first our attorney was really optimistic that we would win and then all of a sudden on the day of our trial he talked us into settling with the BF. We knew the BF would never follow through with the settlement which is why we were not afraid to settle. Our attorney said in a couple months we would refile, so when the time came we called our attorney, no answers to phone calls. He was receiving correspondence from the other attorney and not sharing it with us, including one that specifically requested a reply from me. Once we finally got him to do the paperwork and refile he forgot to file a substitution of judge so we could appear in front of the same judge and so our case was dismissed and we are hearing two stories as to why it was dismissed, one is that the substitution paperwork held things up, the other is because we failed to appear, nice huh, we didn't even know we had a court date! Needless to say we have now had papers served on us by the BF which say we had a court date we never showed for and he is requesting visitation saying I have been wrongfully denying him visitation even though it has been 4 1/2 years since he has called me to see my son. We have consulted with another attorney who told us our attorney should have never had us settle to begin with, that our case was obvious that the BF had abandoned my son and he firmly believed his rights would have been terminated. We would love to switch to this new attorney but he says it would make us look pretty disorganized to be in the middle of a case and change attorneys. My story could go on for quite a while but I just wanted you to know I understand your frustration!!