Legal advice regarding issues with a contractor

[Zaki Naveed]

Hi,

This my first time using the biggerpockets website. I just started my real estate journey and bought my first house that my wife and I, and our 1 year old were planning on moving into 3 weeks ago. We were getting it remodeled and hired and a contractor through our real-estate agent. The contractor just stopped after the demolition and for the past month and a half has been doing very little, that too through subcontractors here and there. My real estate agent is helping me find other contractors and says that this contractor has never behaved like this before. 

The issue is, I fell for his traps and gave him 75% of the payment (around 35k) because he kept saying he needed it to get done soon and I did not want to extend my lease too much because it was very expensive to do so. So that was a big mistake. I think he might have personal issues going on and does not have the money to continue working on my job whilst he is probably working on another job. He says his children are sick but this happened way before this matter.  

I think the best thing would be to take legal action because he says there is very little to give back even though barely a third of the job is done. So I need some advice. I have never had any legal issues before so this is my first time going through this process. If someone here can give me advice on how to go about hiring a law firm/lawyer, what to expect and if someone knows a good lawyer who deals with these issues in Memphis TN, that would be extremally helpful! 

Thank you