filed before april 2001

My wife filed before april 30, 2001. The lawyer, We are sorry we hired, said our case is simple even though we did not get the letter from her former employer until 20 days after the 45 day letter was sent. Lawyer sent it back with explenation that the lawyer my wife had at the time is no longer reachable by his current listing. This is true. We wrote checks out and she filled out all the information but it was sent back to us because the wrong amounts were on the checks. The new fees apply even though it was received befor the date of the new fees. The difference is so little I could care less. What I do not like is that I do not trust our lawyer and yet feel commited as I already gave her 1000 dollars with 500 more due when we get the work permit. I had to go to her office 6 times to finally get all the information and documents she needed. Now we don't know whether to trust her. She wanted me to make a check out to her so she could write seperate checks to INS. I said I felt more comfortable writing them myself but she insisted she should write them in order to track whether they were cashed and to get a CASE NUMBER? from the cashed checks. I insisted on writing them anyway which she said would work fine. Well now we have forms i-485 i130 and i765 returned to us each with a i797c notice of action saying the check amounts are incorrect. and also that there is a 70 $ finger print fee missing. We sent a total of 1735.00 in two seperate checks. Doesn't it sound like a bad lawyer and what should I do. I was born in the u.s. Employed as a school teacher for 10 years, my wife did enter illegally but has worked and has payed taxes since 1994. Her, now my, daughter is 8 years old and born here and has a Settled Status #. My wife has a perfect record, not even a traffic ticket. SHE DID FILE BEFORE APRIL 30. 2001. WHAT SHOULD WE DO. Thankyou in advance for any advice