Way OT: Advice on some attorney ineptitude.

Too long, won't read: I'm unhappy with an attorney and I am curious about options for recourse, if any.

 

I'm going to post this here for various reasons: 1). I have zero total experience in my life with anything related to the law and I am totally ignorant to how any of this works. 2). I'm not a member of all that many public forums and out of all the forums I am present on the members here seem, by far, the most savvy to legal topics. 3). I've Googled myself silly over the past few days and the results are watery at best. 4). This is also all taking place in Michigan, so what better place than a Michigan-centric board? Hopefully my rationale checks out and I apologize for the off-topic post and what I think will wind up being long-windedness. 

The situation, in a nutshell, is this - my wife had hired an attorney (in November 2023) for what started as some pretty straight-forward custody agreement changes and has slowly morphed into something a little more complicated. About two weeks ago she decided she wasn't happy with mentioned attorneys performance and decided to go to a different attorney for the duration of the case.

The original attorney was all over the place. If I had to sum it all up I'd say that the work that was done was largely unorganized and/or incomplete. She would have trouble with or flat out wouldn't remember names, dates or events surrounding the case. She had written numerous letters or emails that completely left out or even altered certain happenings. At least one document that she had written actually had to be amended because of names being incorrect. She even charged us for the amendment and later on in a letter (which she charged us $95 to draft and send) apologized for the misstep and finished out the letter by asking for more money. Said letter was quite embarrassing in itself, rife with historical inaccuracies, grammatical errors and a decorative frame on all three pages that would make my teenage daughter blush. Overall I'd say that any sort of meaningful communication was lacking and it wasn't attributable to the effort of my wife. She's been totally on top of everything that's transpired.

The issue isn't necessarily the cost so much as the principal. I don't want to pay any more than what I have to for what I perceive as extremely shoddy work. My wife paid the original retainer and after that was dried up was right around when she cut ties. The new attorney took it upon herself to "get rid" of the old attorney and I expected a final bill to come in the mail soon after. It certainly did and I can't make much difference of anything on the bill to dispute anything that has happened along the way, but one thing I know for sure is that the former attorney is charging us for an hours worth of work after she'd been "substituted" (fired). It's about 5 or 6 various rinky-dink charges that add up to an hours worth of work. Review and sign substitution paperwork - .2 hours, email client and new attorney about paperwork - .2 hours, file paperwork - .2 hours, etc. 

I have a few questions in relation to this experience.

1). Are we truly on the hook for any costs incurred after we employed another attorney and the original was informed of being off the case?

2). Does any of what I've described add up to any sort of meaningful misconduct or incompetence that could warrant any sort of formal complaint? Obviously when everything is said and done I'll blast the firm on Google reviews but curious if there's anything more that can be done.

3). Should this be a diary?