Something is off. The receipt notice never arrived, or the hearing date came and went, or the office that answered every call in the first month now answers none. Before you decide whether you have a bad lawyer or a slow agency, the useful move is narrow and unglamorous: establish what exists on the record, in writing, with dates attached. Almost every real remedy available to you, and there are several, depends on knowing which of those two things went wrong. A careful reader starts with the paper, not the feeling.
1. Confirm what was filed, independently of the office that filed it
Every petition or application submitted to US Citizenship and Immigration Services generates a receipt notice with a receipt number, and that number lets you check status yourself online or by phone. If you are in removal proceedings, the immigration court has an automated case information line and a portal that report your next hearing date and any decisions entered. Neither source requires your attorney's cooperation. If your case appears with a filing date you were never told about, or does not appear at all, you have moved from suspicion to a specific, checkable fact you can build on.
2. Ask for your file in writing, and define what you mean
A request for "my file" invites a thin envelope. Ask instead for copies of every form submitted on your behalf with the signature page, every receipt, approval, denial, and request for evidence issued by the agency, every notice from the court, all correspondence sent or received about your case, and the signed fee agreement. In most states an attorney must return the client's file on request, and the obligation generally does not depend on whether the bill is fully paid. Send the request by email and by certified mail, keep the receipt, and give a firm date.
3. Switching representation is a form, not a confrontation
An attorney or accredited representative appears in your case through a notice of appearance: Form G-28 with USCIS, Form EOIR-28 before the immigration courts, Form EOIR-27 at the Board of Immigration Appeals. A new representative files a new notice, and that filing is what redirects the agency's mail to the new office. In court, the judge may ask the prior attorney to move to withdraw, and a hearing close at hand can complicate the timing, so tell the new office your next date at the first meeting. You do not need permission from the first attorney to consult a second one.
4. Complaints go to two places, and they do different jobs
The state bar that licensed the attorney handles discipline: suspension, reprimand, disbarment. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department component responsible for the immigration courts, runs its own disciplinary program and maintains a public list of practitioners restricted from appearing before the immigration courts, the Board, and the immigration benefits agencies. Filing with one does not file with the other, and serious cases usually warrant both. A complaint is a record, not a repair; it will not extend a deadline or reopen a case by itself, which is why the substantive fix and the complaint run on separate tracks.
5. What a refund actually looks like
Read the fee agreement first, because the language governing flat fees, earned-on-receipt clauses, and advance payments held in trust determines the shape of any refund. Money still sitting in the client trust account is the most recoverable. Fees for work genuinely performed, even work performed poorly, are harder to claw back. Government filing fees are paid to the agency and are not the attorney's to return. Many state bars run a fee arbitration or fee dispute program that is faster and cheaper than a lawsuit, and it is often the practical route for a disputed few thousand dollars.
6. Preserve the ineffective assistance record while you still can
If a deadline was blown and you want a motion to reopen, the immigration courts expect a particular showing, usually described by the case name Lozada: an affidavit explaining what you hired the attorney to do, proof that you notified the attorney and gave a chance to respond, and evidence a bar complaint was filed. That sequence is why the written file request and the complaint matter beyond venting. Build them in order, keep every mailing receipt, and hand the whole packet to the next attorney at the first appointment.
The reason to do all of this in the first two weeks is that most of it stays available: records can be requested, representation can be changed, and a well-documented complaint keeps its value long after the frustration has faded.