Legal Question in Family Law in Illinois

Hi,

I'm badly in need of advice. Here is my story so far.

1. I live in the UK

2. My now ex-wife lives in McHenry county IL with my 7 (almost 8) year old daughter.

3. Since we divorced my ex wife has disallowed me parenting time with my daughter, only allowing me to see her IF, When, where she said and only with her present and for how long, usually not long. She had no reason to do this and there were no court documents to allow her to do this.

4. My ex-wife is on disability and gets child allowances for my daughter and two other children by her current partner and get more money per month from that than I do from working.

19 months ago I employed an attorney and began taking a legal stand for my parental rights.

It's been a long drawn out and very expensive process but the is currently at the point where after having a guardian-ad-litum represent my daughters best interests, the GAL report was more than favourable to me and we have now put an agreement forward to put an end to this case.

My problem is that recently my attorney has started lying to me and I found out he changed the wording on the agreement to something I don't agree with and he didn't discuss it me and submitted it to opposing council anyway.

When I first approached my attorney I asked, after explaining that my ex would likely make things very difficult, "Worst case scenario, what is this likely to cost me?". I was told "$5000-$6000 IF it went to trial plus about another $800 if we needed to get a GAL involved". Early on I was also "advised" to pay a "goodwill" payment of $1500 to the opposing councils costs which I did under the advisement that I'd likely get it back.

The current agreement has been "pending" for 2 months now and when I confronted my attorney about it he got defensive and started telling me he'd "talked to me about this already" which he hadn't, and the "this" was that I am likely to have to pay my attorney aswell as all my ex's attorney costs which they are asking for a "like amount to what I pay my attorney" despite my attorney doing all the paperwork and charges more than opposing council does. Also I am told I will likely have to pay all the GAL costs which started at $1500 as opposed to the $800 I was advised and are now astronomically high nearing $10,000.

I know from my attorneys own mouth that the GAL is a very close friend to my attorney and I am starting to suspect that the opposing council is also and that they are working together to prolong the case as long as possible to increase the cost and also get me to pay for it all.

I had some money saved for this but that is gone and I am now running on reserves.

Am I just being paranoid or is it completely unjust that I had to take court action or I would never have time with my daughter, but I am also being made to pay for everything too.

I don't know what to do at this point but I can't help feeling like I'm being taken for a ride by my own attorney.

1 Answer from Attorneys

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