Lawyer Dropped Me Without Filing Anything

Location: Minnesota

April 2025 I placed a retainer with a lawyer to start divorce proceedings with my ex. I had previously self filed through a website, but my ex refused to sign the paperwork and I didn’t know how to proceed. Legal paperwork is something my brain has a very hard time understanding so all of this has been exceptionally stressful for me.

Recently, my lawyer dropped me. We had a quick five minute meeting over Zoom in June. I had to work that day, so during the day I was processing our meeting.

I hadn’t realized that we had filed nothing with the courts. I’ve got over $5000, probably close to 6k, invested in the process and was alarmed that nothing had been filed. My lawyer seemed to think that we were trying to find a compromise with my ex, but I had made it clear that my ex was not a reasonable person when this process started. That’s why I needed a lawyer to help me. If my ex was reasonable, he would have signed the first batch of divorce papers I painstakingly put together back in 2022-2023ish.

So I emailed my lawyer with my concerns. I had been worried about the process taking longer than expected, but was discouraged from reaching out as it would incur additional charges, so I told myself to trust the process. Until that conversation in June, I thought they were working in the background to make sure the divorce got pushed through. I was wrong.

So I sent a polite, but concerned email saying that now that I’ve had time to process our five minute conversation, I had some concerns and laid them out for the lawyer and his team. The lawyer responded over a week later or so saying that they were trying to reach a compromise with my ex since the court is expensive. I responded saying that I know that court is expensive, but that my ex was never going to be reasonable, he doesn’t care if he’s legally married or not, and that I told him that at the beginning of this process. I was about as understanding as possible, given the circumstances. I said that I understand that there’s a lot of eyes on this and perhaps there was some misunderstandings going on. I said that I’m worried how much more this is going to cost me and asked for an estimate to finish the process and how much time it would take.

Friday, they sent me a response and said that we aren’t good fits and they dropped me as a client. No further explanation. I don’t have a lot of extra spending money at the moment and am unable to place down another retainer for another lawyer right away. I would post more info or screenshots, but I don’t know what the legal consequences of that might be, so I won’t be sharing those at this time.

I don’t know what my options are at this point. I feel like I’ve wasted money, time and energy. I have lived separately from my ex since April 2019 when I kicked him out. I was hoping to get some advice on what I might do and if there’s any way to get my money back, since nothing was ever filed or if I’m just screwed. Thanks ahead of time for reading ????