Okay, deep breath, there is no reason to panic, I promise.
A few things...
1) Have you spoken to the Home Office directly to confirm that they at least have your application?
2) You need to speak to the lawyer. She can't refuse to take your call. You need to ask her the following questions:
- what she has done to get this dealt with quickly? Has she complined or written to your MP?
- what chance she thinks you have of it being approved in the end? If so, when?
- whether she is aware of the new penalties for overstayers which come into play in October?
- what is the reason she thinks the application from the US will take six months?
- whether she thinks an application from the US will be successful or not?
- why she thinks it is better to continue with this route rather than withdraw the application and apply from the US.
Either get a response in writing or make detailed notes of the phone call and then get back to us.
If finances are an issue and this woman is doing it for free, lets see what we can do to get this sorted without having to change reps. If you get nowhere and lose total confidence I can help, but I would have to charge something - we can discuss this off forum at a later stage. But lets stick with putting a rocket up your current lawyer's @rse first, and see if that gets anywhere.
The ban would only come into play if you have not got an approval or left the UK by the end of September, so we have four months to get it sorted. You are in no imminent danger of being removed, so this is not something you need to be worried about at the moment. We have plenty of time to get you sorted, trust me.
I realise I am asking you to trust someone you have never met and only know from an internet forum, but really, I deal with this situation on a daily basis. We will sort this out.
Vicky