谢 ALL your advice. More details:

The family has the assets/income to pay and even started but the lawyer stopped them though he does not specialize in Probate law and just lost a simple contract case for them. Not sure why he included/listed in the probate assets inventory:

(1) the primary residence (even the Quitclaim deed automatically gave it to the widow)
(2) half value of a rental house and a peice of small land (co-owned with a third party who refused to transfer title after the deceased made full payment with borrowed money from me to save it from foreclosure, that's the person he planned to sue/'kill', too bad the death came soon)

With that, can I lien all of the properties even the primary house is the widow's per deed and the rental/land's titles are clouded?

Thanks
daiht