legal malpractice regarding breach of fiduciary duties or negligence

I need to understand what part of the assets you had a life estate in--usually it is for a house.  If the house was already gone when your mother died,  then I would understand the lawyer's actions.  If the life estate was for all assets of the estate or something that didn't need to be sold (such as a house on which you were able to keep the mortgage current),  then I would be interested in learning more about the situation in order to answer this question.  The other question I have is whether you had your own lawyer during probate or whether you relied on the lawyer for the estate?