Paid the retainer and heard nothing? Five things to check before you switch lawyers
Who keeps your originals, how to obtain a full copy of everything filed for you, what silence actually means, and how to change counsel without disturbing a pending case.
Immigration filings are almost always submitted as photocopies, so there is rarely a reason for a firm to keep your birth or marriage certificate. If an office does hold originals, insist on a dated, itemized receipt naming each document.
The receipt notice test
A receipt notice from the agency, bearing a case number, is the only independent proof that a petition actually arrived. Ask for a copy of it rather than accepting an assurance that something was mailed.
Case number self-service
Once you have the receipt number you can check status yourself online at any hour without going through the office. It turns an unanswered call into a question you can answer alone.
Written response windows
Read the engagement letter again for the clause covering communication, which often names a turnaround period and a preferred channel. If it promised updates on a schedule and none arrived, that is a contract term, not a matter of temperament.
The retainer is signed, the first payment cleared, and then the relationship changes shape. Calls that were returned in an hour now take a week, and the person who explained the strategy so clearly at the consultation is suddenly reachable only through an assistant. Some of that is normal. A lawyer who is preparing your filing is not sitting by the phone, and a case in a multi-year queue genuinely has months where nothing happens. The problem is that silence looks identical whether the work is moving or not, and a careful reader learns to check the things that distinguish the two.
1. Your original documents should still be yours
Birth certificates, marriage certificates, passports, foreign civil records, and any document with an apostille attached belong in your possession, not in a manila folder in someone else's office. Nearly everything filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency responsible for adjudicating family and employment petitions, is submitted as a photocopy, with originals produced later at an interview if an officer asks. If a firm holds originals anyway, get a written, itemized receipt listing each document by name and date of issue. If they already have them and communication has gone quiet, ask for their return in writing before you do anything else.
2. A complete copy of the file is not a favor
You are entitled to know what was submitted under your name, and a working office produces that copy without drama. What you want is the whole packet as filed: the signed forms, the cover letter, the exhibit index, the evidence, the check or payment confirmation, and the receipt notice that came back with the case number on it. The receipt notice matters most, because it is the independent proof that a filing physically reached the agency. A case number lets you check status yourself, on your own schedule, without asking anyone's permission.
3. Response time is a promise you can read in the engagement letter
Most reasonable offices answer a non-urgent message within two to three business days and acknowledge an urgent one the same day, even if the substantive answer takes longer. Better engagement letters say so explicitly, naming a window and a preferred channel. Read yours again. If it promised weekly updates and you have had none in six weeks, that is a contract term unmet, not a personality difference. Put the request in email so there is a timestamp, keep it short and factual, and ask one specific question that can be answered in a sentence.
4. Substituting counsel does not restart your case
Changing lawyers is an administrative act, not a reset. A new attorney files a fresh notice of entry of appearance, Form G-28 for matters before USCIS or Form EOIR-28 in immigration court, and the agency then treats the new representative as the point of contact. Your priority date, your receipt date, and your place in line are attached to the petition, not to the person who mailed it. In court, a substitution before a scheduled hearing is routine, though a new attorney may need a short continuance to prepare, which is worth discussing before you sign anything.
5. A fee dispute and a bar complaint run on separate tracks
Every state bar has a disciplinary body that accepts complaints about neglect, unreturned files, and unearned fees, and many also run a fee arbitration program that resolves billing disagreements more quickly than a lawsuit would. Filing either one has no effect on the pending immigration case, which is being adjudicated by a federal agency that neither knows nor cares who your previous lawyer was. The sequence that works best is practical: retrieve the file and the originals first, get new counsel formally on the record second, then pursue the complaint with the documents already in hand.
What the careful reader keeps
Build the habit early rather than in a crisis. A single folder, physical or digital, holding the engagement letter, every payment receipt, every filing receipt notice, and a dated log of calls and emails will answer nearly every question you might later need to ask. It also converts a vague sense of being ignored into something specific: four unanswered emails between March and May, one filing with no receipt notice produced. That is the record a new attorney can act on immediately, and it is the same record that makes a fee dispute straightforward rather than a matter of competing memories.
Phone messages leave no record either side can point to later. A short, factual email with one answerable question creates a timestamp and a paper trail at no cost.