Hello, Im not sure if I am overreacting but, two months ago I hired a lawyer to take care of my fathers estate. I gave him 1,000.00 dollars to start he then said I can give him the other 2,500.00 in a couple of weeks. We then spoke and he made it seem that he will take out the money from my fathers bank account, I called his assistant to see what is going on because I have not received the letter from city hall stating I am the administator, she said the lawyer wanted to know about the balance I told her what he and I spoke about she then contacted me and said he said OK ( I took it as he forgot what we spoke about and he was agreeing to what was agreed on.) anyway I spoke to my lawyer and he asked me about the money I said what his assistant and I spoke on and what she said he said. ( she misunderstood what he said). I spoke to the lawyer and told him my husband wants a breakdown on what he did with the thousand dollars before he dishes out another dime, every time I call to get this info either his assistant left the job permanantly ( this happened twice in one month) or he is out of the office. ( I spoke to him twice and this was by accident I caught him out there)what is going on? What can I do? I feel that I am stuck with him ( when I spoke to my lawyer last week he said he was going to see the judge because they are unable to locate my brother, and that he will tell me how much it is going to cost to take out an ad in the paper). This week his new assistant said they are trying to locate my brother. This is preety much all I am hearing
I know I sound like I am rambling but today is a bad day for me and again someone from his office was suppose to call and they didn't.

Calling attorney's offices and asking them for a breakdown on attorney's bills will probably get you nowhere as you have found out. Write them a concise letter asking them for the breakdown.

Does this estate have a lot of assets to itemize and get approval from the court to disburse such as real estate, cars, etc? Just giving a $1,000 retainer is enough to get the case started. I don't think the attorney can access the money from the deceased's bank account to cover his fees unless it is approved by the court to do so.

How large an estate are we talking here? It may be very costly to probate the will as the attorney can base his fee on the value of the estate to be probated.