I Caught My Attorney Lying To Me And Billing Me For Work She Never Did, Where Do I Go From Here?

Location: Colorado.

Background: I hired a divorce attorney. My ex agreed to a settlement then ghosted without payment. I had to rehire my attorney to take him to court for contempt. He was found guilty. He was ordered to pay my attorney fees and this is where things got messy for me. Our divorce was finalized on August 1st 2023. He had 90 days to pay the agreed upon settlement. He did not pay. His contempt hearing was August 4th 2024.

I was charged 15,000 by my attorney and her paralegal. The court awarded me 6400.

The lie: My attorney filled an affidavit of fees for the contempt hearing, the problem was, she didn't include the final invoice that covered the day of the hearing. That was the really expensive one because she had to travel to the county court and file paperwork etc. Obviously I want that covered by my ex.

I sent her an email and asked her to update the affidavit with the final invoice. Weeks went by and I didn't hear from her. I emailed her a couple of times asking for a copy of the updated affidavit. She billed me for responding to these emails, and said she had updated it.

56 days later, she sends me a copy of the final orders. The court did a lodestar calculation and found her fees to be excessive and only awarded me half of what she charged. With that paperwork, was the affidavit of fees without the final invoice. It was well beyond the deadline for him to contest the affidavit, I have no idea if I could have asked the court for more or an explanation or anything.

The billing: Not only was I billed for the emails of me asking her to update the affidavit (despite the omission being her fault), but she billed me for "revising and updating the affidavit of attorney fees" I reached out to the court to check to see if an updated affidavit was ever filed and it was not.

I understand that given the court only awarded me half the fees in the first place that the addition of the other invoice was unlikely to result in any additional compensation but it is still a huge issue to me. I retained my attorney on March 24th 2025. Due to court backlogs, our trial date was set for August 4th.

I was billed every week between March and August for what felt like a pretty straight forward contempt case. The problem I have now is I can't tell where I have been excessively billed, though I have been able to tease out some redundant charges from the itemized invoices. Additionally, I have no faith that what appear to be legitimate charges were actually executed or at the rate given she has already lied to me at least once.

Going forward: I feel like I was also sort of dumped at the end of the case. She told me she would put a lien on his property and didn't. I finally got a different attorney at the same firm to do it for me but I'm finding stuff out on my own like, the lien is only good for 6 years. My ex owes me a weekly penalty but when will that expire? They never told me it was a possibility the court could award less attorneys fees. Will the interest penalties get to a point where they will hit a ceiling? If I don't collect by a certain day, will the judgement expire? I don't know how to move forward with this case.

My ex's strategy is to wait this out. He has missed several deadlines since the filing on day one. He has not had to face any penalties or consequences to date. As long as he doesn't move, the lien on the house won't be satisfied. He makes most of his income under the table, garnishment will not satisfy the weekly penalty, let alone down pay the principle. He owns the house outright and it is currently worth 12x the amount he owes me.

I have made a list of charges I want refunded that I am planning on sending to the head of the firm and the billing department. Mostly 75 dollars for weekly update to the team, charges for emails where she lied and stuff like that. But it still feels like a huge violation. And considering the hours I have had to put into chasing down the billing department and getting someone at the firm to listen to me, it feel insufficient. I just don't know what to do from here and any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I hired a lawyer because I didn't know enough to move forward with this on my own. I feel way out of my depth and taken advantage of by literally everyone.