Yes, you can switch lawyers in Delaware in the middle of a case.

That part is the easy answer.

The ugly part is everything attached to it: whether your old lawyer has a claim on the fee, whether any unused retainer gets refunded, whether the new lawyer wants the case in its current shape, and whether your workers' comp claim and any third-party claim are already tangled together.

If you got burned in a restaurant kitchen, got told to slap some ice on it and finish your shift, and you still don't have decent treatment lined up because you work for tips and don't have health insurance, a stalled case hits harder. You are not sitting on some abstract legal file. You're missing shifts, losing cash, and trying not to fall behind on rent.

You are allowed to fire your lawyer

Delaware clients are not trapped.

If your lawyer won't return calls, won't explain what has been filed, or keeps telling you to "be patient" without giving you anything concrete, you can end that relationship.

You do not need your lawyer's permission to do it.

What you do need is a clean handoff, because kitchen burn cases can split in two directions fast. One track is workers' comp through the Delaware Industrial Accident Board if the burn happened on the job. The other track is a separate injury claim if somebody besides your employer may be responsible - like a cleaning contractor, equipment company, landlord, or outside vendor. A lot of people don't realize those are different animals. One lawyer dropping the ball on one side can quietly damage the other.

The retainer is not "gone," but don't assume you're getting it all back

People hear "retainer" and think it means a nonrefundable down payment.

Not necessarily.

It depends on what kind of fee agreement you signed.

If this was a straight personal injury contingency arrangement, there may not have been a big upfront retainer at all. The lawyer may only get paid if money comes in, plus reimbursement for case costs. If you did pay money upfront - which sometimes happens in mixed matters, workers' comp disputes, or limited-scope work - the lawyer usually cannot just keep unearned money because the relationship went bad. They can claim fees for work actually performed and costs actually advanced.

That means the fight is usually over value.

Not feelings.

If your file sat for months and all they did was send one letter, order a few records, and ignore you, that matters. If they pushed the comp carrier, got medical authorizations in place, preserved evidence from the kitchen, and dealt with a wage issue tied to your tip income, that also matters.

Ask for the written fee agreement and a full accounting.

Not a vague summary.

An actual accounting.

Your old lawyer may still claim part of the fee

This is where people get blindsided.

Switching lawyers does not always erase the first lawyer's right to be paid for work already done. In Delaware, the old attorney may assert a lien or later claim a share of the contingency fee based on the value of the work performed before the switch.

That does not mean you automatically pay two full attorney fees.

Usually the fee gets worked out between old and new counsel, or later out of the same overall attorney-fee pot if the case resolves. But fee fights can absolutely slow things down if the first lawyer is bitter, disorganized, or trying to squeeze a weak file for one last payout.

And if you're already worried because nobody is calling you back, understand this: a messy lawyer withdrawal can delay getting your file, your medical records, photos, wage proof, and carrier correspondence. In a burn case, those details matter. The temperature source, how long the grease sat on the floor, whether non-slip mats were missing, whether there were prior complaints, whether your manager made you keep working - that stuff does not get easier to prove with time.

The new lawyer is going to look for one thing first

Damage control.

Not your feelings about the old lawyer. Not the drama. Not the office politics.

They're going to want to know whether anything important has been missed.

Usually that means:

• whether a workers' comp petition was filed or needs to be,
• whether medical treatment gaps make the burn look "minor" on paper,
• whether photos of the burn and the kitchen area still exist,
• whether your wage loss is documented, including tip income,
• and whether any third-party claim is still alive under Delaware's deadlines.

That treatment-gap issue is brutal for servers and bartenders. No insurance, no urgent care follow-up, no burn specialist, and suddenly the insurance company acts like it must not have been serious. They don't give a damn that you were choosing between a clinic bill and groceries. They use the gap anyway.

A better lawyer can still fix some of that.

But they can't pretend it didn't happen.

If your case feels stalled, ask for the file before you argue about blame

A lot of clients waste two more months fighting with the old lawyer over who dropped the ball.

Forget the argument for a minute.

Get the file.

You want every letter, email, photograph, medical authorization, insurance notice, billing record, comp filing, denial, and note of any settlement discussion. If the case involves a burn at a restaurant in Wilmington, Dover, Newark, or down in Sussex County where summer restaurant staffing gets chaotic before the beach crowds roll in, the paper trail is the case. Kitchen incidents get minimized fast. Managers rewrite the story. Surveillance gets overwritten. Coworkers disappear.

The handoff matters more than your last angry voicemail.

Fee dispute between old and new lawyer? That is their problem until it becomes yours

Here's the practical truth: sometimes the lawyers fight over the fee and keep the client out of it. That is how it should go.

But if the dispute starts threatening settlement timing or your share of the recovery, then it becomes your problem real quick.

You should want one thing from the new lawyer at the start: a plain-English explanation of whether the old lawyer is claiming a lien, whether that claim is likely to come out of the same contingency fee, and whether you are being asked to sign anything that shifts more of that fight onto you.

Read that last part twice.

Because when clients are stressed, hurt, underpaid, and trying to keep a job after a workplace burn, they sign whatever gets put in front of them. That's how people end up learning too late that the lawyer switch was allowed, but the money side got messy because nobody explained it straight.

If your old lawyer has gone silent, the case has not automatically died.

But silence is not harmless.

In Delaware, a case can look fine right up until a deadline is blown, a comp issue is mishandled, or a weak paper trail lets the other side pin too much blame on you. And in a state with modified comparative fault, if a third-party case turns into a finger-pointing contest over "you should have seen the grease" or "you kept working so it couldn't have been that bad," the facts need to be nailed down early, not whenever your lawyer finally decides to call you back.