My Lawyer Stopped Responding To Me, And My Case Is In Jeopardy. I Need A New Lawyer. What Do I Do Now?

I have a medical malpractice case filed in California; I am suing a medical provider on behalf of a family member who was injured. For the past 2 years, my lawyer has been impossible to reach/has ignored my attempts at communication. With the little communication I did have, the lawyer assured me that an extension would be obtained to file form interrogatories for discovery. That was a lie.

The defendants have been filing motions to get the case thrown out of court. My lawyer missed multiple deadlines to respond to defendant attorneys and to the court. And to top it all off, for part of that time my lawyer was suspended by the State Bar. I still cannot get ahold of my lawyer. I have already been in contact with the State Bar about the bad lawyer, but this does not help my case from being thrown out.

I need replacement counsel. But every time I try to contact another attorney, I get some version of “We have a policy not to take cases that were filed by another attorney.” I have utilized multiple referral services, bar associations, and reached out directly to attorneys, and it always ends up the same. I have contacted around 30 attorneys already.

Is there any magic phrase or something specifically I can point out to persuade someone to take the case? I think it has good merits, and the bad lawyer that I hired probably only put in around 10 verifiable billable hours total of work, so I don’t think a lien being placed on the recovery amount is a major concern. The only action that has been taken so far is the filing of the lawsuit, literally nothing else. I don't understand why no one will help.

Advice please? Thank you for reading and responding.