Complaint Review: ronda middleton attorney

I am a divorced father of a 4 year old beautiful girl who I have been trying to see and my ex has been doing everything possible to prevent me from seeing my daughter.  so back in 2011 I was referred to a ronda middleton who was at the time with a firm cho, sheasby, chung in rancho cucamonga california.  She seemed very helpful at the time and i trusted her to get my visitation arranged for my weekends.

I gave her $ 5000 to start the case and she told me this was a retainer and she would charge me 300 dollars per hour for her time and whatever was left over would be refunded to me.  So weeks went by and nothing happened.  I  called and called and the receptionist took messages and no returned calls.

Finally, I sent a letter to ms middleton at her last address i got off the state bar website and I mailed it  to her but it was returned to sender as unknown.  As it turns out she was booted out of the partnership she was in at the Cho firm and I found out they were pretty much fed up with her clients complaints and sent her on her way.  I later on tracked her down at the new office she shares in some executive office in fullerton and went there to confront her and get my case filed or my money back.   She refused to come out to the waiting area and kept me waiting for 45 minutes.  I knew she was there cause the receptionist paged her on their phone line.

What a waste of time, so i hired a new lawyer and he researced the case and found out she did file it but never notified me and no one showed up in court on that date and time so the case got dismissed.  I lost out on 6 months with my child and am out 5 grand that i cannot afford to lose.  i am just a wage  earner and that is two months of pay for me.  

I feel I was taken advantage of and would like to find out what recourse i have to be my money back.  It is pretty low to take people's hard earn money and leave them hanging for months.  After being burned so bad i really don't know  where to turn.